Development in the News in Ghana

(Begin with development news and see all other articles in this set below)

One way to gauge Ghanaians’ priorities of issue is to find out what types of news stories tend to capture their attention when they read newspapers, watch TV or listen to the radio. It may be encouraging for development professionals involved in communication efforts to see in Chart 1 that topics such as health, the environment and agriculture rate high among those that attract “a great deal of attention” from survey respondents as they use traditional media sources.

Chart 1
                

It is also worth noting that specific development topics, such as health, that generally rate low in the “serious issues” question scale, rated higher on the newsworthiness scale. Conversely, while personal economic concerns such as jobs and poverty are at the top of the list of serious issues, only half of respondents to the news topics question said they pay much attention to stories about business and the economy.

Generally speaking, those survey respondents who say that others come to them very often for advice and opinions on certain topics (defined as Opinion Leaders in this study) are more likely to pay attention to news, regardless of the topic (Chart 2).  Opinion leaders in finance and farming are more likely than the average respondent to say they pay a great deal of attention to news related to their area of opinion leadership (business and the economy for finance leaders, agriculture and the environment for farming leaders). The same is also true of opinion leaders in health, although to a less dramatic extent.

Chart 2
       

From a gender perspective, a lower percentage of female respondents than male respondents said they pay a great deal of attention to each issue, apart from health issues (Chart 3).

The gender spread was widest in sports, politics and world events. On the other hand, nearly three-quarters of the female survey respondents said they pay a great deal of attention to information about health, crime, and community events.

Chart 3
     

(click on each link to get a complete picture of the development context in Kenya)