Abstract:
Poverty has remained a cancer that plague many developing countries and the media have
a role to play in eradicating poverty. This study examines the prominence the media give
to issues of poverty, the frames used by the Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times
newspapers to report issues of poverty and the reasons for using these frames from the
perspective of journalists. Newspaper content analyses and interview are the methods
used to collect data for the study. Premised on the agenda-setting and framing theories,
contents of the two state-owned newspapers, published from January to December, 2019
were analysed, and 263 poverty-related stories were identified. The analyses of these
stories revealed that the media in Ghana give little prominence to issues of poverty in
comparison with the frequency and placement of poverty-related stories in the
newspapers. Four frames – poverty redress, poverty advocacy, plight of the poor, the
poor as nuisance – emerged from the data analysed. Thus, the newspapers dominantly
frame poverty as a phenomenon that is being addressed, and advocate for its address.
Journalists argued that the sources of poverty news, economic reasons, personal values of
journalists and media as mirror of society are the dominant reasons these frames are used
to report issues of poverty. The study recommends, therefore, that the media pay more
attention to and report issues of poverty, especially when poverty remains a plague that
hangs on the neck of the majority of Ghanaians.
Description:
A Thesis in the Department of Communication and Media Studies, Faculty of
Foreign Languages Education and Communication, Submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment
of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of
Master of Philosophy
(Business Communication)
in the University of Education, Winneba
MARCH, 2021
