Covid-19 and Ghana’s quest for herd immunity a rhetorical discourse analysis of the presidential “updates”

Abstract

This study interrogates the covid-19 addresses of president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo to discover their inherent rhetorical appeals and goals. Qualitative content analysis was the design for the work, by which the research officer purposively sampled five (5) COVID-19 addresses of the president for interpretive analysis. The focus of the study was on the covid-19 addresses delivered between February 2021 and March 2022 which were rhetorically analysed based on the Aristotelian rhetorical theory. The study found numerous persuasive strategies that exposed the presence of Aristotle's triad of appeals; ethos, logos and pathos in all the five selected update speeches. The findings of the study revealed further that, appeal to exemplary leadership, expert approval and trust in authorities were used under ethos while appeal to fear and empathy, nationhood and optimism are appeal types found to have depicted the patho-centric mode of persuasion. And the type of appeals which exemplified logos include; appeal to logical argumentation, datadriven policies and statistical data. Again, achievement of zero COVID-19 active cases in Ghana was found to be the overarching persuasive goal and two other supporting goals of attaining a vaccine-induced herd immunity and adherence to the COVID-19 safety protocols. The study also conclusively upholds the effective utilization of Aristotle’s trichotomy of appeals by Mr. Akufo Addo in his addresses to strategically influence an appreciative response among his audience, on the fatality of the virus, efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines and adherence to the safety protocols. Suggestions were made to the effect that; subsequent studies could examine the impact of the persuasive techniques employed by the president on the Ghanaian populace. And replicating this study on the other covid-19 speeches by the president, apart from the ones selected for the current study.