Journal of Communications, Media & Society (JOCMAS)

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Browsing Journal of Communications, Media & Society (JOCMAS) by Author "Afful, Ebo"

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    Coverage of Presidential Candidates and Press Bias in Ghana
    (Journal of Communications, Media & Society, 2016) Afful, Ebo
    The news media in democracies are seen as suppliers of political stories to citizens. And one of the methods by which this activity is performed is by the news gathering and dissemination role of the media. In a situation where selection and presentation of news is based on biased instead of the interest of citizens, the ethics of the profession is questioned. In effect, it is anti-democracy and development. Above all, with regard to Ghana, it amounts to a total disregard of the code of the Ghana Journalists Association. This study examines the extent to which the press was biased in its framing of the previous presidential elections. Using content analysis, the study, which is grounded in the theory of gatekeeping, found out that in 2008 and 2012 election campaigns in Ghana, the press was biased in favour of the NPP’s presidential candidate. This result also goes to dispute the trend of incumbency bonus or advantage in Ghanaian political communication.
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    Election Campaigns Framing in an Emerging Democracy: Horse race versus Issue Framing in Ghana
    (Journal of Communications, Media & Society, 2017-05) Afful, Ebo
    Political communication literature has repeatedly documented various forms of framing election campaigns across democracies, although that on Africa, including Ghana, are few. Matters of interest to such studies concern issues, horse race, coverage tone and presidential candidates' media visibility. This paper presents some findings from a qualitative content analytical study that explored political campaign coverage of elections in the Ghanaian media and implications thereof within the context of political communication. Grounded in framing and gatekeeping theories, the study specifically focused on the relationship between two broad categories – issues and horse race framing – in the 2008 and 2012 election campaign coverage in Ghana. And with data from two state-owned and two privately-owned Ghanaian newspapers, the study analyses which categories dominated the press presentation of the various election campaigns. The study demonstrates that coverage of the two elections was issue-based with peace as the most covered issue. However, the data also appears to indicate that horse race has the potential to dominate Ghana's coverage of future elections.