The Context
Globally, societies have been concerned about how media shapes news narratives on countries, continents and regions. Such concerns were highly expressed during the 1970s when developing countries criticized the Western media for its skewed reportage of negativity hinging on poverty, wars, diseases, coup d’etat, conflicts and natural disasters. These criticism towards the Western media were championed under the contentious New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) which sought to seek fair and positive coverage as a way of managing the negative image Western media projects about the African continent. Perhaps the argument should rather be; why blame the Western media without ascertaining how Africa’s own media projects her own domestic spaces. It is within this context of finding out the media image of an African country in an African media that Abdulai Sufyan turned the media lenses on the Northern Ghana in an article “Northern Ghana and Media Propaganda”(www.modernghana.com24/03/2009) and leveled criticism against the Ghanaian media for ‘isolating the Northern Region’, treating it ‘unfairly’ by projecting events related to ‘wars, conflict, poverty’ at the expense of ‘developing news such as agriculture, manufacturing, and industry’. He further articulated journalists lacking in knowledge about the Northern Region as reflected in their consistent ‘interchanging the names of the Northern regional capitals’. Besides Sufyan’s assertions about the North’s presentation and representations in the Ghanaian media, the Northern part of Ghana its often projected with stereotypical constructions of ‘poverty’ and limited ‘opportunities’ tags (Rethinking The Definition of The Northerner In Ghana, Hardi Shahadu Wumpini, www.modernghana.com28/05/2024). This current analysis is inspired by the preceding narratives about the North, hence to establish how the media presents the Northern Regions and its related mental pictures. Northern regions of today comprises eight regions (Northern – Tamale, Upper East – Bolgatanga, Upper West – Wa, North East – Nalerigu, Savanah – Damongo, Bono East – Techiman, Brong Ahafo – Sunyani, and Oti region – Dambai) from January to September, 2024. The primary objective of this analysis is to draw attention to what constitute negative news thematic of the eight Northern regions and its related impact on the brand image and reputation of the Northern regions.
Negative Thematic and Forward.
In establishing for type of news thematic, 1100 online news portals’ reportage on the eight Northern regions were analyzed as the study’s units in the context of news value-thematic. Inter coder validity was at 85% validity. 880 news thematic was recorded with 346 thematic been 53% negative sentiment and 309 projecting 47% positive tones as in fig A and Fig B:
Fig A.
The study revealed Killings, Conflicts, Accidents, Death, and many more as the negative thematic projections of the eight northern regions. In terms of the regional projections, Oti region tops the negative thematic ratings followed by Upper West and Upper East. Significantly, the news thematic positive tones were due to government infrastructure initiatives, social interventions and agriculture, it scarcely reported on industry, manufacturing and tourism. A projected image of the Northern regions is likely to impact on the places’ brand reputation. An effective brand reputation is a driving force for business investments, tourism and adds to the reputational value of the citizenry and Ghana as a whole. Northern regions’ media sentiment should be treated as an extensions of Ghana’s global image and not to be limited to the regions. The fact is, Northern regions will forever remain an integral part of Ghana; Northern Region is Ghana and Ghana is the Northern region. It is therefore important for regional ministers, district executives, opinion leaders and the residents to pay attention to their region’s brand reputation. Certainly, branding of the Northern regions should be a collective effort between the media and city actors and the responsibilities of Ghanaians both in and out of the Northern regions. Perhaps, society shouldn’t always criticise the media for negative brand sentiments but city planners should deploy strategic development efforts intended to enhance the image of a place and the region. In forward looking, city mayors should also engage in consistent and scientific media monitoring strategy in tracking and aggregating each region’s media image and the degree of mental pictures such news articles, thematic and subjects turn to project about Northern regions’ spatial identities. Also, a strategic rebranding project of the Northern regions is worth considering.
Finally, this article is not intended to critique the media but to draw attention to media’s portrayal of the Northern regions and subsequently calling for a rebranding action as a way for promoting and sustaining business investments to the Northern regions of Ghana.
Fig. B
About the Author: Messan Mawugbe (PhD), email: mawugbe@ibnareports.org