Communication is not consultation: a documentary analysis of participation depth and the architecture of community engagement during the 2026 Bundibugyo virus disease response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Introduction: Risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) is treated as essential to Ebola response, but routine reporting can collapse qualitatively different forms of participation into a single category of "engagement." We examined what kinds of participation were actually demonstrable in the documentary record of the 2026 Bundibugyo virus disease (BDBV) response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and what the reporting system itself made visible. Methods: We conducted a documentary analysis of national outbreak SitReps and companion RCCE streams through 3 September 2026. A literature-informed 0--7 framework distinguished no documented interaction, information, sensitisation/mobilisation, feedback collection, consultation, negotiation, iterative participation, and co-design/shared decision-making. Exact source excerpts, actors, dates, sources and validation status were retained. The frozen primary dataset comprised 180 RCCE documentary units; 156 were validated directly to source PDF/text and physical page, and 24 late-window units were verified to the processed national stream pending original-page validation. Results: Thirty units (16.7%) were information, 111 (61.7%) sensitisation/mobilisation, 37 (20.6%) feedback collection, and two (1.1%) consultation. No source-verified unit demonstrated negotiation, iterative participation or co-design/shared decision authority. The response nevertheless possessed a substantial listening apparatus: community concerns included treatment-centre conditions, delayed safe and dignified burials, alert handling, decontamination, medicines, vaccines, clinical trials and body presentation. The documentary chain usually ended at feedback capture, clarification or exchange rather than a traceable decision-to-modification pathway. Conclusion: The 2026 response record documents extensive communication, mobilisation and social listening, but makes community influence over response decisions much less observable. The finding is not that deeper participation did not occur; it is that routine epidemic reporting was better equipped to demonstrate reach and feedback than negotiation, adaptation or shared authority. RCCE monitoring should therefore complement reach metrics with explicit feedback-uptake and decision-trace indicators. Keywords: Bundibugyo virus disease; Ebola; community engagement; participation; RCCE; co-production; social listening; documentary analysis; Democratic Republic of the Congo; epidemic governance