Framing of Political News Coverage: a Case Study of the 2016 General Election Campaign Coverage in Ghana

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CREATIVE RESEARCH AND STUDIES www.ijcrs.org ISSN-0249-4655

Framing of Political News Coverage: A Case Study of the 2016 General Election Campaign Coverage in Ghana

Collins Clancy Atta Opoku*, Asuamah Adade – Yeboah & Nancy Adu Bediako Department of Communication Studies, Christian Service University College Kumasi, Ghana

*Corresponding Author

Abstract This study examined how the Ghanaian news media framed their coverage of the 2016 general election campaign in Ghana. The theory of framing, drawn upon with examples from Western European and United States of America democracies was used to conduct the study. Political communication literature has documented various forms of framing election campaigns but those on Ghana are few. The state of the media in Ghana is widely considered the most improved and thriving institution. The media is free and vibrant as criminal libel laws are non-existent in their laws (Gyimah-Boadi, 2012). This study delved into the political and media development of Ghana’s media finding out how they framed their coverage of the 2016 presidential election campaign. A total of 199 news articles were analysed from two online news sites for this study. The findings revealed that, the most visible parties mentioned in the coverage were the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition New Patriotic Party. Deploying a quantitative content analysis, it emerged that the Ghanaian news media covered the 2016 election campaign in an issue frame manner instead of a horserace manner, fulfilling their primary normative responsibility of informing the citizenry of the options available to them prior to casting their vote. The study further revealed that the Ghanaian news media framed their elections campaign coverage in a more conflicting manner. The findings are discussed in the light of extant knowledge about media framing of election campaigns in a conflict, horse race and or issue frame manner.

Keywords: Horse race, media framing, democracy, schemata, conceptual, criminal libel. www.ijcrs.org Page | 65

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655

1.0 Introduction The 2016 Presidential elections in Ghana was the seventh democratic election held since Ghana introduced the new constitution and multi-party democracy in 1992. According to Lindberg, (2006) presidential campaigns and elections are vital as they determine who is elected as the head of state and to whom the majority of people would entrust with their sovereignty. In a report by the European Union Election Observation Mission, it stated that, the political environment prior to the 2016 elections was more challenging in comparison to 2012, with heightened political tension. NPP challenged the results of the 2012 presidential elections in the Supreme Court, but the court, while acknowledging a number of shortcomings in the process, ruled against the complaint. Partly as a consequence of this, these elections were characterised by a high level of scrutiny and some mistrust of the process by the opposition, as well as a higher level of political tension and public apprehension overall. It was the third presidential attempt for the NPP flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo, who lost to John Atta Mills in 2008 and to John Mahama in 2012. At the same time, President John Mahama, was strongly committed to securing his second full elected term in office.

The media as a mouthpiece of the people perform a crucial role in a competitive democratic world. A competitive democratic world refers to “the democratic system which has an institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the people’s vote”(Schumpeter, 1975). One key feature of democracy is elections and normatively the media is expected to provide the citizenry with requisite information for the evaluation of leaders and making of electoral choices (Strömbäck, 2008) in every democracy. It is based on this expectation that the media is usually assessed on how well they play their role of providing the electorate with the information they require to assess their leaders and alternatives available to them (Opoku,2016). According to Mughan and Gunther (2000), democratic citizens everywhere mostly depend on the media and less on family, community and other intermediary institutions as a primary source of political information. Online news websites has become crucial and common and therefore it is worth exploring whether its landscape changed the media coverage of the 2016 election (Opoku, 2016). Moreover this study aims to determine if the media is performing their normative responsibility by giving the citizens the accurate information they need or if they are covering election campaign news in an increasingly dramatized or conflict manner. To do so, the study analyses media content from two comprehensive news websites to find out how they framed election campaign news, the tone of their coverage and the focus of their coverage; whether it was conflict based. The study seeks, therefore, to answer the following research question:

RQ: How did the Ghanaian news media cover the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign?

2.0 The Media and Elections in a Democracy According to Gutman, (2000) an election is the process by which citizens elect the people they want to run their government at all levels. An election itself is a formal act of collective decision that occurs in a stream of connected antecedent and subsequent behaviour (Key, 1955). A democratic election is impossible without media. A free and fair election is not only about the freedom to vote and the knowledge of how to cast a vote, but also about a participatory process where voters engage in public debate and have adequate information about parties, policies, candidates and the election process itself in order to make informed choices (Vanessa, Nellika, Andy, Bronwen, Ann & Abdullahi, 2012). In today’s ever changing technological world, the media’s ability to reach citizens far and wide has made it a key component of not only the information dissemination process but, also the democratic system of every country (Pavlik, 2000). The basic role of the media is to enlighten and educate the public and present their content and platform as neutral and objective for the free debate and consumption of all diverse views (Vanessa et al, 2012). One key concept in understanding the role of the media in the transformation www.ijcrs.org Page | 66

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018 of established democracies is mediatization, which has also been described as a meta-process on a par with other transformative social change processes such as globalization and individualization (Hjarvard, 2013; Kriesi et al., 2013; Krotz, 2007, 2009). The term “mediatization” refers to a social change process in which media have become increasingly influential in and deeply integrated into different spheres of society (Asp, 1986; Strömbäck, 2008). Mazzoleni (2008a) thus defines the mediatization of society as indicating “the extension of the influence of the media (considered as both a cultural technology and as an organization) into all spheres of society and social life”, while Hjarvard (2008) defines mediatization as “the process whereby society to an increasing degree is submitted to, or becomes dependent on, the media and their logic”. This situation has seen the media turning out to be the most important source of political information for the electorate, media practices being governed by media logic rather than political logic and, political practices governed by media logic rather than political logic (Strömbäck, 2008). The media as a mouthpiece of the people perform specific roles of the competitive democratic world. A competitive democratic world refers to “the democratic system which has an institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the people’s vote”(Schumpeter, 1975).

3.0 Framing Theory Framing is related to the agenda-setting tradition. The Agenda setting theory together with the media framing theory has become increasingly popular in news analysis and the effective way in which the media shape public opinion. This is done by using frame events that select aspects of perceive reality and make them more salient in communication text according to Entman, (1993). Framing is based on the assumption that how an issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by audiences (Akortia, 2015).The basis of framing theory is that the media focuses attention on certain events and then places them within a field of meaning. Goffman (1974) propounded framing theory when he wrote about ‘frame analysis’.

According to (Cissel, 2012) Goffman was the first to concentrate on framing as a form of communication and defined “framing” as a “schemata of interpretation” that enables individuals to “locate, perceive, identify and label” occurrences or life experiences (Goffman, 1974). To Entman, (1993) framing is a process in which some aspects of reality are selected, and given greater emphasis or importance, so that the problem is defined, its causes are diagnosed, moral judgments are suggested and appropriate solutions and actions are proposed whilst Gamson and Modigliani (1989) refer to framing as ‘interpretative packages’ that give meaning to an issue. According to Gamson and Modigliani (1989), framing is a central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning to an unfolding strip of events, weaving a connection among them. The frame suggests what the controversy is, [offering information] about the essence of the issue" (p. 143).

Framing is thus the process by which politicians and journalists jockey to highlight certain aspects of issues or events in an effort to simplify them or connect them with the larger political world (Cappella and Jamieson1997). Framing makes an issue or event stand out. This therefore turns audience interest to that particular event. Cappella and Jamieson (1997) suggest that frames activate knowledge, stimulate ‘stocks of cultural morals and values, and create contexts’. In doing so, frames ‘define problems’, ‘diagnose causes’, ‘make moral judgments’, and ‘suggest remedies’ (Entman, 1993). Framing, also referred to as ‘representation’ in media, comes with two aspects, which are selection (or accessing of sources or claims-makers) and presentation (or evaluation of arguments or actors) Hansen (1999).

McCombs (2004) has argued that framing is simply a more refined version of agenda setting. Since its evolution, framing has been used widely in communication research of media content and studies of the relationship between the media and public opinion (de Vreese, 2005). Framing of news stories are suggested by particular www.ijcrs.org Page | 67

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655 devices such as headlines and kickers, subheads, photographs, photo captions, leads, pull quotes, selection of sources or affiliations, selection of quotes, nut graphs, and logos (Severin & Tankard, 2001). Shoemaker & Reese, (1996) made it clear that journalists and communicators use modes of presentation to disseminate information in a way that resonates with existing underlying schemas among their audience. This does not mean, of course, that most journalists try to spin a story or deceive their audiences. In fact, framing, for them, is a necessary tool to reduce the complexity of an issue, given the constraints of their respective media related to news holes and airtime (Gans, 1979).

3.1 Conflict Framing A second approach to framing involves conflict frames (Gelfand et al., 2001; Pinkley, 1990). These frames represent cognitive schema that reflect an individual’s interpretation of a situation (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Gray, 1997; Tannen, 1999). The second criticism on the media's coverage of election campaign worth examining is the use of conflict framing (Opoku, 2016). News frames have been identified as conceptual tools which media and individuals rely on to convey, interpret and evaluate information (Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992). They set the parameters ‘’in which citizens discuss public events’’ (Tuchman, 1978). Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) define conflict frame as a frame "that emphasizes conflict between, individuals, groups or institutions as a means of capturing audience interest" (p. 95). The conflict frame relates to “the disagreement between individuals, institutions, or countries and emphasize points of divergence between conflicting parties” while the economic consequences frame is seen as a preoccupation with the ‘bottom line, profit and loss (de Vreese, Peter & Semetko, 2001). Conflict frame emphasizes conflict between individuals, groups, or institutions as a means of capturing the interests of the audience. (Neuman et al, 1992) found that the media depend on a few central frames for reporting a range of issues and that conflict was the most common in the handful of frames in U.S news they identified. According to Semetko & Valkenburg, (2000) other research has also observed that discussion in the news between political elites often reduces complex substantive political debate to overly simplistic conflict. Presidential election campaign news for example, is framed largely in terms of conflict (Patterson, 1993). Because of the emphasis on conflict, the news media have been criticized for inducing public cynicism and mistrust of political leaders (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997). News about politics is generally framed in terms of conflict (McManus 1995; Patterson 1993). Previous research has pointed to the distinctively high news value of stories that focus on conflict between political actors (Price 1989). News media tend to focus on stories where there is conflict – where two sides can be pitted against one another (Neuman, Just, and Crigler, 1992). Thus, the presence of conflict is an essential criterion for a story to make it into the news, not only because it ‘sells’, but also to meet professional standards of balanced reportage (Galtung and Ruge 1965; McManus 1995). Conflict is also inherent to politics. It is embodied in political reasoning (Lupia, McCobbins, and Popkin 2000) and in democratic theory conflict is seen as an essential part of democratic decision-making (Sartori 1987). Conflict results from the competition of different ideas and, typically, precedes consensus about a problem. Thus, if citizens realize that it is part of democratic decision-making, conflict may, in principle, have positive effects on citizens’ political attitudes and participation (de Vreese and Tobiasen 2007). According to (Schuck, Vliegenthart and de Vreese 2008) citizens may, for example, come to the conclusion that democracy functions well, may be activated to talk about political affairs or may feel a greater incentive to vote. Min (2004) adds a nuance to this by spelling out the potentially different role of different types of conflict, whereby conflict about substantive issues has a positive impact on mobilization whereas conflict about persons has less or more of the opposite effect.

www.ijcrs.org Page | 68

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018

Based on the literature review, the following hypothesis has been propounded:

H1: Ghanaian news media will frame their 2016 general elections campaign coverage in a more conflicting manner.

3.2 Horse race Frame Framing politics as horse race has become a significant concept in the field of political communication research. It is a journalistic practice where the focus of media coverage is on which candidate or political party is ahead and who or which party is behind in the political contest (Afful, 2016). Framing of election campaigns as a horse race is seen as virtually overshadowing real political substance and issues (Afful, 2016). Also called game frame, it is defined, in broad terms, as focusing on politics as a game, personality contest, and as strategy and tactics for winning, while the issue frame is defined as news stories focusing on the substance of political problems, issues, or proposals (Aalberg, Strömbäck, & de Vreese, 2012).

It is a frame that also demonstrates the self-interests of political actors (Patterson, 1993; Graber, 1993). Iyenger (1994) observes that game frame or horse race framing of election campaigns is interested in telling the story about the electoral changes of competing election competitors, opinion poll changes of candidates, fund raising activities, delegate counts instead of issue positions of competing candidates. In other words, horse race journalism is not interested in focusing citizens’ attention on issues of competing candidates (Afful, 2016). Game framing or horse race framing can be identified with the following characteristics: It focuses on who is winning and who is losing the contest; it uses the language of war, games and competition, and talks of performers. Other characteristics are: horserace focuses on candidate’s style and perceptions and finally horse race places value on opinion polls and candidate’s chances in the political competition (Jamieson, 1992; Afful, 2016). The original horse race news became part of the game frame which was later discussed as part of the strategy frame.

Horse-race or game frame discusses a ‘strategy schema’ where journalists focus on who wins and how candidates are seen as performers in a game or in a war (Aalberg, Strömbäck, & de Vreese, 2011). The game frame is dedicated to what is often labeled horse race journalism. This type of news coverage has a strong focus on winners and losers and is typically related to opinion polls and election outcomes. Quite often, these news stories also involve a language of war or games to describe the campaign (Aalberg et al, 2011). Patterson (1993), on the other hand, talks about a ‘game schema’ of political reportage, structured around the notion that politics is a strategic game in which candidates compete for advantage war.

Cappella and Jamieson (1997) call it a ‘strategy frame’ that emphasizes who is ahead and who is behind. This strategy and tactics of campaigning necessarily enhances a candidate to get ahead or stay ahead. Aalberg et al. (2011) also make the point that those electorates who are over exposed to much horse race framing and less issue framing are less likely to learn and become aware of the issues positions of the contesting candidates who they are supposed to vote for. This can help resolve some of the problems they face. In the face of this, some scholars are of the view that horse race framing of politics undermines democracy since such frames have negative implications for democratic governance.

Such scholars argue that horse race framing of election campaigns may end up producing politically less informed electorates (Aalberg et al., 2011; Cappella and Jamieson, 1997; Afful, 2016). The harder the presidential campaign teams try to have control over what journalists would like to report about their candidates, the more journalists try to report something else instead (Zaller, 2001). Andersen and Thorson (1989) make the point that, the popularity of television today, has enhanced technology coupled with so much interest in commercialization www.ijcrs.org Page | 69

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655 of the media have all contributed to the increasing framing of politics This, they argue, is a reflection of the nature of journalism we are experiencing in democracies today.

Fallows (1997) also argues that the attraction of horse race framing to political journalists is because with just a little effort, journalists are able to gather, process and get ready with their news stories on deadline. Horse race framing is also easy and more attractive since it does not demand as much resources as demanded by researching to produce a story on the substance of complex policy discussions (Afful, 2016). The journalistic practice of framing politics as a game, is being practised in virtually all democracies (Strömbäck and Kaid, 2008). It is much more popular in the commercial US news journalism (Patterson, 2000) than in some other countries.

Based on the literature review, the following hypothesis has been propounded:

H2: Ghanaian news media will cover the 2016 general elections campaign in a more horse race manner than on issues.

4.0 Methodology The method used in the study is a quantitative content analysis of ghanaweb.com and myjoyonline.com’s political news coverage in across-sectional research design. Content analysis was deployed because it is a technique which aims at describing, with optimum objectivity, precision and generality, what is said on a given subject in a given place at a given time (Laswell, Lerner, & de sola pool, p.34).

The sample size of the study is one hundred and ninety nine (199) online news articles from ghanaweb.com; the most visited news website in Ghana according to the Alexa statistics and myjoyonline.com; the undisputed point of reference for the campaign and election results during the 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016 electioneering period. These news articles are supposed to fall between the 6th of October and the 6th of December; the period within which all contesting candidates and parties were known; and the last day of campaign.

The purposive sampling technique was used to select all political news articles that fell between 6th October and 6th December, 2016 on ghanaweb.com and myjoyonline.com. Out of the lot, 199 were selected randomly from the initial sample size of three hundred and fifty (350) to reach the final sample size of one hundred and ninety nine (199).

A code sheet was developed to measure the frequency of coverage and the sort of frame used in the coverage by the two news websites. The data obtained was analysed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software.

5.0 Results and Analysis Before starting with the hypotheses, it is interesting to see a bit of overview of the coverage. In the nine-week campaign period, the two news websites had visible coverage of the political parties and candidates in the 2016 presidential election. Out of 199 news articles studied, at least one of these candidates and/or their political parties were mentioned in the headline 199 times making up 100% of the sample. The most visible parties mentioned in the headlines were: National Democratic Congress (NDC) who had Mr. John Mahama as their candidate (mentioned 57 times representing 28.6% of the headlines); New Patriotic Party(NPP) who had Nana Akuffo-Addo as their candidate (mentioned 56 times representing 28.1% of the headlines); Convention People’s Party (CPP) who had Mr. Ivor Greenstreet as their candidate (mentioned 11 times representing 5.5%); Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) who had Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom as their candidate (mentioned 22 times representing 11.1%,) , Independent Candidate who had Mr. Joseph Osei Yeboah as their candidate (mentioned 2 times representing www.ijcrs.org Page | 70

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018

1.0%), National Democratic party (NDP) who had Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings as their candidate (mentioned 7 times representing 3.5%), Peoples National Congress (PNC) who had Dr. Edward Mahama as their candidate (mentioned 6 times representing 3.0%,), All People’s Congress (APC) who had Mr. Hassan Ayariga as their candidate (mentioned 11 times representing 5.5%). Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), who had Dr. Henry Herbert Lartey as their candidate (mentioned only once representing 0.5%); United Front Party (UFP) who had Mr. Akwasi Addai Odike as their candidate (mentioned only once representing 0.5%). Here the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition New Patriotic Party were the most dominant. They combined to make up 56.7% of the 87.4% of the political party sources used by the media.

Further on visibility, the political parties and or their representatives were mentioned again in the same news headlines portraying further visibility in the coverage by the media. Once again National Democratic Congress (NDC) who had Mr. John Mahama as their candidate (mentioned 41 times representing 20.6% in the headlines); New Patriotic Party(NPP) who had Nana Akufo-Addo as their candidate (mentioned 41 times representing 20.6% in the headlines); Convention People’s Party (CPP) who had Mr. Ivor Greenstreet as their candidate (mentioned 4 times representing 2.0% in the headlines); Peoples National Congress (PNC) who had Dr. Edward Mahama as their candidate (no mentioned made representing 0%,), Independent Candidate who had Mr. Joseph Osei Yeboah as their candidate (mentioned only once representing 0.5%), All People’s Congress (APC) who had Mr. Hassan Ayariga as their candidate (mentioned 3 times representing 1.5%), United Front Party (UFP) who had Mr. Akwasi Addai Odike as their candidate (mentioned only once representing 0.5%), National Democratic party (NDP) who had Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings as their candidate (mentioned 7 times stories representing 3.5%), Progressive Peoples Party (PPP) who had Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom as their candidate (mentioned 7 times representing 3.5%), Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) who had Dr. Henry Herbert Lartey as their candidate (no mentioned made representing 0%). Again, here the ruling National Democratic Congress and the main opposition New Patriotic Party were the most dominant. They combined to make up 41.2% of the 49.2% of the political party sources used by the media.

Considering the hypotheses, the first hypothesis predicted the Ghanaian news media framing the 2016 general elections campaign coverage as more conflicting manner.

Table 5.1: Explicit Conflicting Views Explicit Conflicting Views Frequency Percentage (%) Yes 107 53.8 No 92 46.2 Total = 199 Total = 100

From the table above, it is obvious that the Ghanaian news media covered the elections campaign in a more conflicting manner with 107 out of 199 stories representing 53.8% as having conflict frames inherent in them. This confirms H1.

To answer the second the hypothesis; it predicted the Ghanaian news media to cover the 2016 general elections campaign as more horse race manner than issues frame.

www.ijcrs.org Page | 71

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655

Table 5.2: Balance between Issues and Horse race Coverage Issues and Horserace Coverage Frequency Percentage (%) Article is (nearly) entirely focused on horse race 40 20.1% Article is much more focused on horse race than on 19 9.5% issues Article is balanced between issues and horse race 17 8.5% Article is much more focused on issues than on horse 5 2.5% race Article is (nearly) entirely focused on issues 118 59.3% Total = 199 Total = 100.00

From the table above, 40 stories out of 199 representing 20.1%, entirely focused on horse race. Furthermore, 19 stories out of 199 representing 9.5% focused “much more on horse race than on issues”, which combines with “entirely horse race” to get a total percentage of 29.6%. On the other hand, 59.3% was “entirely focused on issues” with 188 stories out of 199 stories. In addition, 2.5% representing “much more focused on issues than on horse race” with 5 stories out of the total 199 news articles. Based on our findings, we can argue that the Ghanaian news media covered the election in a more issue frame than horse race frame. This refutes H2.

The goal of this study was to assess the Ghanaian news media coverage of the 2016 presidential election campaign by comparing the coverage of two online news websites. The study specifically looked at horse race coverage and conflict framing of the elections by the news media.

The results revealed that in the 2016 general elections campaign coverage, expectedly, the NDC and NPP; the largest opposition party and the largest ruling party were the most visible political parties in the Ghanaian media news coverage. Since Ghana returned to democracy in 1992, these two political parties have been winning elections and changing government back and forth, as well as having the largest representation in Ghana’s parliament. It reinforces a stereotype in Ghana politics and our fear is that, they are strongly driving Ghana’s politics into a default two party state. It is either NPP or NDC.

The findings showed that the Ghanaian media covered the news in a more conflicting manner. According to (Galtung and Ruge 1965; McManus 1994) the presence of conflict is an essential criterion for a story to make it into the news, and it is catchy. These news organisations are for profit-making and want to cover stories that people will patronize. News framed in a conflict manner is on high demand and it sells. The Ghanaian media which are mostly for profit-making organisations, are expected to frame the news in a conflict manner to capture the interests of the audience. Semetko, & Valkenburg (2000) stated that, discussion in the news between political elites often reduces complex substantive political debate to overly simplistic conflict, thereby reducing political discourse to simply I agree and I disagree. Ghanaian media are following suit to the western media type of framing and if they continue to do this, they will reduce proper political discussion to a mere conflict issue at the potential detriment of Ghana’s young thriving democracy.

What is happening in the United States of America is creeping into Ghana’s democracy. Though it’s a young democracy, it is one of the most vibrant thriving democracies in Africa. It has successfully changed government three times from government to opposition.

The Ghanaian news media framed their election campaign coverage in an issue frame instead of a horse race or game frame, contrary to the trends in Western Europe and the United States of America. According to Afful www.ijcrs.org Page | 72

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018

(2016), horse race framing is also easy and more attractive since it does not demand as much resources as demanded by researching to produce a story on the substance of complex policy discussions. Journalists could have been lazy as (Afful, 2016) posits, but the Ghanaian news media are not, rather researching and writing stories on policies. This would compel us to think that the Ghanaian news media are going about their normative responsibility without veering off. With that they inform the citizenry of the various policies and options at their disposal from which they can make an informed choice. The election was framed in a more issue manner discussing policies. Ghanaian media should be praised here for not following what is happening in other democracies as (Strömbäck and Kaid, 2008) argued.

6.0 Conclusion The Ghanaian news media landscape is growing and developing rapidly. They are still actively projecting the two largest political parties in the country, though it is not a two party state. Similar to the happenings in the United States of America and Western Europe, they are framing election campaign coverage in an increasing conflict manner. However they are not framing election campaign coverage in a horse race or game frame but in an issue frame, fulfilling their normative responsibility to Ghana’s democracy.

Findings generated from this study are contributing to academic literature but in future research, we suggest that future researchers combine radio, television and the print media in a comparative content analysis study.

7.0 References Aalberg, T., Strömbäck J., and De VreeseC.H.,(2012). “The Framing of Politics as Strategy and Game: A Review of Concepts, Operationalizations and Key Findings.” Journalism 13 (2): 162–178.

ACE Project: Media Ownership and Elections http://aceproject.org/aceen/topics/me/meb/meb03a/default. Accessed on 20th April, 2018.

Afful, E. (2016). Journalism, election campaigns and democracy in Ghana (Doctoral dissertation, Cardiff University).

Akortia, E (2015). Newspaper Framing of the Electoral Processes Leading to the 2012 General Elections InGhana: University of Education, Winneba

Andersen, K., & Thorson, S. J. (1989). Public discourse or strategic game? Changes in our conception of elections. Studies in American Political Development, 3, 262-278.

Asp, K. (1986). Powerful mass media: studies in political advocacy.

Cappella, J. N., & Jamieson, K. H. (1997). Spiral of cynicism: The press and the public good. Oxford University Press on Demand. www.ijcrs.org Page | 73

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655

Cissel, M. (2012). Media Framing: a comparative content analysis on mainstream and alternative news coverage of Occupy Wall Street. The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 3(1), 67-77.

De Vreese, C. H. (2005). News framing: Theory and typology. Information Design Journal & Document Design, 13(1).

De Vreese, C., Peter, J., & Semetko, H., A. (2001). Framing politics at the launch of the Euro: A cross-national comparative study of frames in the news. Political communication, 18(2), 107-122.

De Vreese, C., & Tobiasen, M. (2007). Conflict and identity: explaining turnout and anti-integrationist voting in the Danish 2004 elections for the European Parliament. Scandinavian Political Studies, 30(1), 87-114.

Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of communication, 43(4), 51-58. Euro: A cross – national comparative study of frames in the news, 107-122

European Union Election Observation Mission (2016). Accessed on 12th January, 2018.

Fallows, J. M. (1997). Breaking the news: How the media undermine American democracy. Vintage.

Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition, 2nd. NY: McGraw-Hill, 16-15.

Galtung, J., &Ruge, M. H. (1965). The structure of foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of peace research, 2(1), 64-90.

Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American journal of sociology, 95(1), 1-37.

Gans, H. J. (1979). Deciding what news: a study of CBS evening news, NBC nightly news, Newsweek, and Time. Pantheon Books.

Gelfand, M. J., Nishii, L. H., Holcombe, K. M., Dyer, N., Ohbuchi, K. I., &Fukuno, M. (2001). Cultural influences on cognitive representations of conflict: Interpretations of conflict episodes in the United States and Japan. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(6), 1059.

Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press.

Graber, D. (1993). Political communication: Scope, progress, promise. Political science: The state of the discipline, 2, 305-332.

Gray, M. S., Movellan, J. R., &Sejnowski, T. J. (1997). Dynamic features for visual speechreading: A systematic comparison. In Advances in neural information processing systems (pp. 751-757).

Gutman, D. (2000). Landslide!: A kid's Guide to the US elections. Aladdin Paperbacks.

Gyimah-Boadi, E., &Brobbey, V. (2012). Countries at the Crossroads: Ghana. Freedom

Hansen, M. H. (1999). The Athenian democracy in the age of Demosthenes: structure, principles, and ideology. University of Oklahoma Press.

Hjarvard, S. (2008). The mediatization of society. Nordicom review, 29(2), 102-131. www.ijcrs.org Page | 74

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies Volume-2 Issue-7, July-2018

Hjarvard, S. P. (2013). The mediatization of culture and society. Routledge. House.

Iyengar, S. (1994). Is anyone responsible?: How television frames political issues. University of Chicago Press.

Jamieson, K. H. (1992). Dirty politics: Deception, distraction, and democracy. New York: Oxford University Press. 335 pages.

Key Jr, V. O. (1955). A theory of critical elections. The Journal of Politics, 17(1), 3-18

Kriesi, H. (2013). Conclusion: An assessment of the state of democracy given the challenges of globalization and mediatization. In Democracy in the Age of Globalization and Mediatization (pp. 202-215). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Krotz, F. (2007). The meta-process of mediatization as a conceptual frame. Global media and communication, 3(3), 256-260.

Krotz, F. (2009). Mediatization: A concept with which to grasp media and societal change. Mediatization: Concept, changes, consequences, 21-40.

Lasswell, H. D., Lerner, D., & de Sola Pool, I. (1952). The comparative study of symbols: An introduction (No. 1). Stanford University Press.

Lupia, A., McCubbins, M. D., &Popkin, S. L. (2000). Beyond rationality: Reason and the study of politics. Elements of reason: Cognition, choice, and the bounds of rationality, 1-20.

Mazzoleni, G. (2008). Mediatization of politics. The international encyclopedia of communication.

McCombs, M. &Chyi, H. I. (2004). Media salience and the process of framing: Coverage of the Columbine school shootings. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 81(1), 22-35.

McManus, J. (1995). A market‐based model of news production.Communication Theory, 5(4), 301-338.

Min, Young. 2004. “News Coverage of Negative Political Campaigns: An Experiment of Negative Campaign Effects on Turnout and Candidate Preference.” The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 9 (4): 95–111

Mughan, A & Gunther, R.,. (Eds.). (2000). Democracy and the media: a comparative perspective. Cambridge University Press.

Neuman, W. R., Just, M. R., &Crigler, A. N. (1992). Common knowledge: News and the construction of political meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Opoku, A. C. C. (2016). Transformation of the European media and governance. Term paper, University of Amsterdam. pp 10-21 on Friday, October 28, 2016.

Patterson, T. E (1993). Out of Order: How the Decline of the Political Parties and the Growing Power of the News Media Undermine the American Way of Electing Presidents. New York: Alfred Knopf.

Patterson, T. E. (2000). The United States: News in a free-market society. Democracy and the media: A comparative perspective, 241-65. www.ijcrs.org Page | 75

International Journal of Creative Research and Studies ISSN-0249-4655

Pavlik, J. (2000), the Impact of Technology on Journalism, Journalism Studies, 1:2, 229-237

Price, H. E. (1989). An effective way to teach and rehearse: Research supports using sequential patterns. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 8(1), 42-46.

Sartori, G. (1987). The Theory of Democracy Revisited Part One: The Contemporary Debate, Vol. 1 and Part Two: The Classical Issues, Vol. 2. New Jersey: Chatham House.

Schuck, A. R., Vliegenthart, R., Boomgaarden, H. G., & De Vreese, C. H. (2008). News coverage and support for European integration, 1990–2006. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 20(4), 415-439.

Schumpeter, J. (1975). A. 1942. Capitalism. Socialism and Democracy. New York. Harper and Row.

Semetko, H. A., &Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of communication, 50(2), 93-109.

Severin, W. J., & Tankard, J. W. (2001). Communication theories: Origins, methods, and uses in the mass media. Pearson College Division.

Shoemaker, P. J., & Reese, S. D. (1996). Mediating the message White Plains. NY: Longman.

Strömbäck, J. (2008). Four phases of mediatization: An analysis of the mediatization of politics. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 13(3), 228-246.

Strömbäck, J., and Kaid, L., L. (2008). A Framework for Comparing Election News Coverage around the World. The Handbook of Election News Coverage around the World. New York: Routledge

Tannen, D. (1999). The argument culture: Stopping America's war of words. Random House Digital, Inc..

Tuchman, G. (1978). Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: The Free Press.

Zaller, J. R. (2001). “The rule of product substitution in presidential campaign news”. Katz, E. and Warshel, Y. (Eds.) “Election studies. What’s their use? Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 247-270.