Beyond Denial: Toward a Relational Verification Framework for Public Relations Responses to Deepfake Crises in Kenya

Artificial Intelligence has introduced a new problem into crisis communication: synthetic audio-visual content that audiences cannot distinguish from authentic record. Kenya, combining high mobile penetration, low institutional trust and a contested electoral cycle, is an early site of this disruption. This qualitative documentary case study analyzes six deepfake incidents verified by Africa Check and PesaCheck in 2025, triangulated with media and official sources, and coded against Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT), Framing Theory and Media Ecology Theory through reflexive thematic analysis. Kenyan deepfakes proved provenance-parasitic, grafting synthetic audio onto authentic footage and borrowing institutional credibility markers. Fact-checkers performed almost all correction; no targeted principal issued a documented rebuttal. Institutions were also vectors, as when a Principal Secretary circulated a synthetic broadcast. Corrections were channel-asymmetric, in English on websites while fabrications spread in Kiswahili and Sheng on social platforms. The study argues that SCCT’s victim-cluster prescriptions are necessary but insufficient in low-trust environments, and proposes the Relational Verification Framework (anticipatory framing, contextual attribution, relational amplification and trust aftercare), anchored in Sawubona philosophy, which treats verification as a relational rather than institutional accomplishment.