allAfrica.com: Ghana: Media Power And Political Influence (Page 1 of 1)

The power of the media to persuade, at least where there is a democratic controversy, wrote Poole 'is very much less than is usually thought; but their power to inform is enormous.'

The power of the media to inform explains why politicians or interest and pressure groups often release information at carefully calculated periods in order to make the necessary impact. And this equally explains why the media need to be extra careful in passing on unfilted information to the public.

Last week was yet another test case for both agenda setters (politicians) and the gate keeping role expected of journalists and their media houses. Prof. John Evans Atta Mills, the NDC's presidential candidate on a tour of the Central Region released information based on the credibility of the electoral register in the Ashanti Region. The news made all the prime news headlines on radio and TV and the following day, it made the banner headlines of most of the newspapers, (both private and state-owned).

Several meanings have been read into the timing of the release and what the sources hoped to achieve. I must say the release made the expected effect, in as much as it got the attention of all stakeholders- the government, the NPP, the Electoral Commission and various interest groups. It also generated some heat and gave a foretaste of what it would take to turn this country upside down. The type of unfilted comments that were churned out of our airwaves were heart rendering and with hindsight, it is suggested that both agenda setters (politicians) and gate keepers (journalists), as well as consumers of media content need to be extremely careful in the course of playing their democratic roles.

In the heat of the exchanges between the protagonists (NDC and NPP) and their supporters, the media stood out for blame once more. Nana Ohene Ntow, NPP's General Secretary questioned the use of the media by the NDC to bring such a sensitive issue to the public domain. In his view, the NDC could have raised the issue at the inter-party meeting. He saw nothing short of NDC preparing the grounds to discredit the 2008 elections if the results do go their way.

Koku Anyidoho however, justified the use of the media; since in his view, the media are stakeholders in the decmocratisation process, besides being the most powerful avenue for disseminating news. The authenticity of the news has since been doubted by the EC chairman, Dr. Afari Gyan.

That the media are a powerful player in any democratic dispensation is not in doubt at all. How they choose to use their power is what has become a headache to researchers and other stakeholders. McQuail et al have argued that people use the media for diversion (including escape from routine and unpleasant problems). To this, Curran et al add that if people use the media to satisfy different needs, they will also interpret and use the same media messages in many different ways. The angry reactions news about the 'electoral register' generated across the country buttresses the tremendous influence media content, whether authentic or not have on the people.

It is a known fact that the media have an authoritative relationship with their audience or readers. This, says Curran et al is one of dependence and trust and it provides the media with a potentially independent power base in a society. With this, many media think that it is the media and not politicians who should be setting the agenda. It has been proved in many countries with mature media that, the media's ordering of priorities has many times influenced voters. Television's coverage of political events has influenced people who were previously unaffected by political communications. This means that the agenda setting by some media seems to becoming more significant to a broader spectrum of the electorate.

It has been argued that public response to news and information is not the only way of considering the political role of the media. Another approach to measure what influences media content according to Curran et al is how news is produced in the first place. The process of news gathering, sifting and editing helps the stakeholders to understand what shapes the commodity sold to the public.

There is however, a limitation. Curran et al conclude that in considering how rival interests (like NDC and NPP) balance one another in the search for media attention, there is a tendency to ignore the broad problem of those important, but powerless and vulnerable groups who have no influence. Thus, the notion that news is always about something that is bleeding, about powerful people or about controversial issues (like the 'bloated electoral register in Ashanti Region) is still dominant in our part of the world. See you next week.

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