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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.

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