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Public Agenda (Accra)

Ghana: Cultural Affinity - Influencing Ghanaian Media's Coverage of Barack Obama?

Amos Safo

29 June 2009

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opinion

Accra — Society, to some extent, accords the media a level of trust due to its presumed narrative authority in selecting, constructing and disseminating information.

Implicitly, the media's selective and constructive role suggests that, news constructions and selections are influenced by how journalists in their professional conduct, institutional policy, ideological, economical, and cultural affiliations produce an authoritative social construction called -News.

These factors influencing news making have led many to treat the media sometimes with scepticism.

The communal scepticism towards the results from the media's ability to position news on the pendulum of objectivity, bias and social complexities, depends on the journalist's professional and individual leanings.

In avoiding news complexities, the media sometimes present news based on basic journalistic rules of beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and common affiliated values existing between journalists and readers or news consumers.

It is against these basic rules of beliefs and affiliated colour binaries of blackness and whiteness, cultural trajectories of (Minority and Majority, African-American, Latino-American, Asian-American, Africans, Europeans, North- Americans, South Americans, Christians and Muslims, etc) that news are shaped and presented across the globe.

News making processes in Ghana continue to be fashioned against a back drop of political leanings, especially where media organisations openly declare their political positions in the pursuance of democratic dispensations.

No matter their leanings, effective communication has always depended on anthropological trajectories. Thus, defining and shaping news values within the social realm of unions of opposites. Our global world view posit that "we are one and at the same time- opposites".

These opposites' concepts were effectively expressed before Elizabethan's1 audience through William Shakespeare's opposite dualities of the Moor2 and the White Awe3 in his popular work The Othello.

A quick glance at an extract from the Othello emphasizes the effectiveness of cultural dualities and cultural opposites in enhancing communication and appreciation of anthropological leanings underlining news making factors:

Iago:

Sir, you're robbed

An old black ram

Is tupping your white awe

(Othello, Act 1, Scene 1, page 821)

Brabanzio: So opposite to marriage that she shunned

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation

Ran from her guardage to the sooty bosom

(Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, page 823)

In our contemporary Ghanaian cultural dispositions of 'they' and 'us' continue to be expressed among the citizenry, especially when parents refuse endorsing their children marriages on the basis of a partner being an Ashanti, Akuapim, Nzema, Dagomba, Ga, Fante, Dagari, or an Ewe - the partner being "so opposite" without a "curled darlings" like 'Ours' as expressed in Othello by Shakespeare and hence could not be allowed by the marriage-gatekeeper4 (parent , uncle , family heads) an entry into a common marriage of lovers of different tribes or origins.

In Similar vein, journalists are mostly influenced by these 'they' and 'us' concept in their news dissemination processes.

It is therefore refreshing to note that, Shakespeare's use of the racial binary in differentiating the 'black ram' with a 'sooting bosom' from the 'white awe' should not be tagged with negative racial dispositions but appraised as a human way of creating power differences and socio-cultural negotiations which are not only common to the European culture but to the Ghanaian culture, and media houses across the globe.

Emanating from these classical cultural binaries in human communication is equal to our contemporary news making concepts or factors called proximity5 and affinity factors.

Affinity and Proximity factors depict the degree of closeness and shared cultural significances between cultures, journalists and their objects.

These factors subsequently determine the type of news coverage, either critical or non critical, the extent of coverage in terms of news space, news frequency, news prominence, and either negative or positive.

Ghanaian media like any other media defines news based on these political and ideological proximities.

In closed cultures, the affinity factors become an already defined leanings handed down by the absolute-political status quo.

Research findings conducted by the Centre for Media Analysis in Ghana revealed how the Ghanaian media was influenced by affinity and proximity factors in their coverage of three major world events6 in relation to President George Bush?s visit to Ghana, Obama and McCain's US presidential election and finally the coverage of President Barrack Obama's visit to Ghana.

Cultural Affinities Influenced US Presidents' Media Coverage in Ghana.

Cultural affinity binaries, suggest the situation where the journalist draws a line between the 'other' and the 'Self' (Us) in terms of common beliefs, common attitude, common aspirations and shared predicaments.

These journalistic dualities tend to bring the journalist and his object closely knitted resulting in positive news coverage for cultures perceived as 'self' whilst the 'other' is accorded negative news coverage.

A study7 conducted in the USA affirmed that news making in the U.S. news room is affected by racial profiling of 'Self ' and 'other' , thus, journalists' race affects the topics reporters select and consequently the quality of the stories they produce.

In addition, geographical proximity and other forms of cultural affinities could also lead to more favourable international news coverage.

These arguments, suggest that Barrack Obama is culturally closer to African countries and the Muslim Communities due to his paternal-African lineage and his paternal - Muslim faith than McCain and George Bush who are considered under the cultural affinity principles as the 'other', or the 'distant object' without any closer proximities.

Cultural Proximity Bias : George Bush (Snr.) Suffered Similar Faith in the Greek Press.

In all probability, during the just ended US presidential election contest between John McCain and Barrack Obama, McCain, who lacks existing cultural affinity references to Africa was seen by Ghanaian Journalists as a 'distant-object' or in other words as expressed in Shakespeare's thoughts could be described as Ghana's 'white ram' 'tupping' on Ghana's 'black awe' and would therefore be given less quality news coverage.

A Similar study conducted on the Greek Media under the heading; Cultural Proximity in International News Coverage: 1988 U.S. Presidential Campaign in the Greek Press, concluded in 19888, the then Democrat USA presidential hopeful, Michael Dukakis with Greek origin had positive coverage in the Greek press than his non-Greek opponent, the Republican George Bush (Snr.).

A recent study by the Centre for Media Analysis (CMA), on Ghanaian media's coverage of the U.S. presidential campaign involving Barrack Obama and McCain, confirms the cultural and racial affinity values influence news coverage as confirmed by the Greek Study.

The study observed that the Ghanaian media gave higher news coverage frequency to Barrack Obama at the expense of McCain.

In a study of 37 Ghanaian Newspapers in July 2008, 29 Newspapers covered Barrack Obama whilst only 9 Newspapers covered McCain.

In terms of percentage coverage, Barrack Obama chalked 86% (68 stories) while McCain had only 14% (11 stories) coverage.

In summary, one could say McCain was treated as the 'distant object' and therefore ignored by the Ghanaian media.

In a further attempt to measure the influence of cultural affinity and proximity effects in international news coverage, CMA conducted a second comparative study on the former US President George W. Bush's visit to Ghana in 2008 and President Barack Obama's up coming visit in 2009.

The intent of the second study is to track how colour or cultural and geographical affinities could influence the Ghanaian media's coverage of an African-American and Caucasian-American presidents of United States of America.

Existing studies have shown that international news selection is influenced by economic, social, political, geographic values, and cultural proximities9.

Advocates of the cultural proximity share the view that, disparities in cultural values and beliefs10 among countries could lead to ineffective or effective communication.

On the other hand, extensive proximities lead to a break down in communication, marked sometimes with distorted news coverage or what George Bush during his visit to Ghana referred to as 'baloney'11.

Also, the affinity12 existing between cultures especially where the relations are highly knit with affinities set in cultural frames of-references13, communication becomes very smooth and with less distortion and more news coverage in terms of frequency and positive tones.

What then constitute the bedrock of cultural frames-of-references between Ghana and the U.S? This might not be far fetched than the deep-rooted historical relations epitomized through the various symbolic forts built along Ghana's sea coast.

These historical relations might not apply directly to President Obama and many African Americans, but in the larger African context, all African Americans are likely to be positively framed in the context of - 'one of us'.-that is to say, for Ghanaians President Obama is likely to be one of Us (Ghanaian - African) and not the 'opposite'.

The Ghanaian media in treating President George Bush as an 'outsider' gave very critical comments and coverage of George Bush's visit as compared to the friendly, and 'welcome-home brother'- style of coverage given to Obama is very revealing.

The study conducted in February 2008, on the media's coverage of George Bush's visit, concentrated heavily on critical issues with the following percentage distributions: U.S. Oil interests - 29% , Neo-Colonial Imperialism- 27% , U.S. Militarization - 17% , and CIA - Kwame Nkrumah's machinations - 8% while a total of 19% formed other issues on the visit.

Translating these trends of coverage into positive and negative ratings, George Bush was rated with indecisive rating.

George Bush also recorded at least 8% opposition to his visit at the time and therefore general assessment of George Bush media coverage could be rated as unfavourable as compared to Barrack Obama.

In relation to President Barrack Obama's expected visit to Ghana, the study conducted 14 days after the official announcement of his visit on the 16th of May 2009, revealed that the media accorded President Obama with a massive 73% Positive coverage.

Unlike George Bush, the media has not been too critical; it rather stuck to the purpose of Barrack Obama's visit with positive connotations.

Ghanaian media by cultural affinity values exhibited the highest level of extreme unequal coverage of McCain during the 2008 U.S. presidential elections and an excessive criticism of George Bush's official visit to Ghana at the time.

Managing Cultural Affinities in News Reporting

In summary, it seems an affinity relation has been shaping communication since human existence.

It is against this backdrop that the Ghanaian print media treated McCain and George Bush as a distant cultural object and accorded Barrack Obama with an affinity value of '-one -of - us'.

This led to high news frequency given to Obama at the expense of McCain and equally more positive news coverage than George Bush.

Interestingly, this latest study by CMA could also disagree or support the Glasgow Media Group, McQuail, Shoemaker and Reese's research position that 'the content of news trends consistently follow a predictable pattern and that different organisations behave in similar way when confronted with the same events and under equivalent conditions'14.

Well it is debatable, for instance, in the case of the US presidential visits to Ghana, the Ghanaian media with their different values were 'confronted by the same events'-US presidency.

The question therefore is; how could common event such as coverage of two presidents from the same country trigger coverage-tone differences and a high degree of consensus in presenting Obama in more positive tone than George Bush, and similarly John McCain?

At a level, this study rather supports Galtung and Ruge, and Hall's15 assertion that 'events would become news the more they fitted certain cultural or ideological criteria'. Or Glasgow Media Group, McQuail, Shoemaker and Reese's research position that news making follows 'predictable pattern'.

President Obama 'fits more' into the African cultural link than his predecessor George Bush hence the more favourable and less critical news coverage for Obama.

It must however be expressed that the different factors influencing news coverage really makes news what it is, for 'without standardization, without stereotypes, without routine judgements, without a fairly disregard of subtlety, the editor would soon die of excitement'16 and news readers appetite would also subsequently die without news excitement.

Perhaps, our contemporary challenge is should the coverage of international news continue to be reduced to cultural, political, economic, and social affiliations?

The answer is absolutely no. News reporting should first and foremost be based on promoting social functionality and the pursuance of effective human coexistence.

The consistent leaning against cultural and affinity proximities in news coverage if not properly managed, could affect the media's critical role in nation building.

In this sense, if this sort of affiliations persists the media could only be seen as a glaze for promoting socio-political flower-beauty.

The world community should therefore neither endorse Segregated News Coverage for the mere reasons of journalistic objectivity.

I am not advocating for journalistic utopianism but journalists should always remember the effects of selective journalism on society, its contribution to civil unrests and in some cases everlasting divisions and building high level of mistrust among communities.

The Ghanaian media and the global media as a whole should therefore, strive to manage cultural affinities in its international and local news reporting.

Journalists could be guided by their individual cultures on their back, but should be led by the principles and strength underlining multicultural and global-village building.

News should be used as a social force in bringing distant cultures closer, decoding and reducing the perceived 'wild' cultures into a - 'one of us' .

Could this power - binary of 'they' and 'us' influencing the Ghanaian Media coverage of President Obama's visit to Ghana?

I humbly ask.

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