Media Coverage of Social Protests in Ghana: A Qualitative Study of the Daily Graphic and Daily Guide Newspapers

Abstract

The study was designed to determine how the Daily Graphic and Daily Guide newspapers covered four (4) major social protests in Ghana using qualitative content analysis and individual in-depth interviews as means of verification. A total of 57 news stories were analysed, and nine (9) media practitioners were interviewed. The specific aim was to find out the nature of portrayal of protest events and protesters, the factors which informed protest news selection decisions, considerations in the determination of protest story sources, and the tone employed in such coverage. The 1995 Kume Preko, 2005 Wahala, 2009 Atta Adaada Mi and 2015 Won Gbo demonstrations were analysed principally because they were formally organized or supported by political parties, involved large numbers of protesters, and attracted extensive media attention. The protest paradigm concept together with Galtung and Ruge’s (1965) news values hypotheses served as the conceptual framework for the study in addition. The findings showed that the protesters were sometimes portrayed as violent, disruptive and lawless. They were also represented as people with ulterior motives who used the protests to pursue their hidden agendas. In addition, it emerged that the media employed both negative and positive tones during coverage of the events. Factors such as security of journalists influenced protest news selection decisions and source credibility, and willingness of sources to interact with journalists affected source selection. Future studies should consider including more newspapers as well as journalists so generalizable conclusions could be drawn about the Ghanaian media and coverage of protest events.