AudiencScapes

By Jeremiah Sam & Kwami Ahiabenu, penplusbytes.org

15 March 2010

Accra, Ghana- An active youth media culture exists in Ghana, providing young people with many options for entertainment, social interaction and gathering information on a number of topics-health, education, sports, music, job opportunities, and more. Here we provide a sectoral rundown of youth-oriented media and communication:

Print
Among the nearly 50 newspapers nationwide, youth gravitate toward newspapers and magazines focusing on entertainment, gossip, fashion, comics, health, beauty, sports, new technologies and music. Newspapers popular among youth include The Graphic Showbiz, Jive, Fylla and Profile, while the magazines Ovation and Agoo are also popular. Paa Kwesi Ashong, a second year student at the University of Ghana, Leon, said that he can’t do without his editions of the Jive and Fylla newspapers, as it helps him to keep abreast of the latest news in the entertainment world.

Derrick Addai, editor of Profile, said youth are attracted to visual content instead of long prose, so Profile publishes pictures of their favorite stars as an enticement. Nana Obiri-Yeboah, a magazine publisher, lamented that most youth oriented publications fold because they do not get sufficient circulation and fail to attract enough youth-specific advertising.

Television

The small screen offers many shows tailored to the youth audience, and not all of them are purely for entertainment purposes. Notably national broadcaster GTV shows a number of programs that are meant have a positive impact on young people. One such program provides education in math and English that is popular among youth. “Next Level” is another program on the station aimed at educating and informing young Ghanaians about health, sports and entertainment. “Imagining Africa” is shown in several African countries and connects youth across the continent through debate, while “Possibility Forum” is a talk show focusing on motivational and reproductive issues. Youth are offered the opportunity to participate in and contribute to these programs through SMS and email messages.

Abe Martey-Markwei, the head of programs at GTV, said his channel’s programs “give the youth a platform to get their voices heard and also a chance to be on TV, which boosts their confidence and drives them to achieve more”. Private stations, however, focus more on the types of programs that will attract the maximum number of advertisers. .

Radio

The country’s more than 150 radio stations have fewer programs than TV targeted specifically at youth, even though young people are heavy users of radio-though mainly for music and other entertainment content. Once again, state broadcasters try to include some public-interest programming geared toward youth. For example, For example, a program on state broadcaster Unique FM, called Gems of our Time, takes a youth perspective on such current affairs issues as health education, sanitation, energy conservation and recycling.

Kingsley Obeng Kyere, the host and researcher for the program, said its purpose is to ensure that youth “know and understand issues affecting them in society, and become educated on being good citizens and how they contribute their quota to national development.” Kyere believes that having youth participating in discussions and debate means that policymakers will be more attuned to issues affecting youth and therefore pay more attention to them. Evidence of this, he said, was the phone calls to the program from parliamentarians and officials at the Ministry of Education, indicating that officials were listening to what youth have to say.

Other stations focus on youth issues. Citi FM, a local radio station in Accra, has a talk show called “Sista Sista” aimed at engaging young ladies on issues of interest. The station also has the “Write-Away” essay writing competition program which targets 10-to-14 year olds with the aim of encouraging them to take their homework seriously and under parental supervision. Joy FM’s “Springboard” talk show is designed to educate youth and motivate them to take advantage of relevant opportunities in their environment.

New Media

While new media is increasingly popular in Ghana, it is mostly confined to urban areas with reliable internet connectivity. Many youth enrolled in educational institutions can use the web for online research, blogging, online dating and connecting with their friends on social networking sites.

Young people are avid users of social networking sites such as Hi5, Bebop, Facebook, classmates.com and flickr (a popular local site called www.mypaddies.com is offline pending re-launch), while some youth use at Ghanaweb and myjoyonline. Facebook is particularly popular and is used to keep in touch with family and friends, meet new people across the world, for dating and for chatting. Kwasi Amankwa, a graduate student at University College, Winneba, said he also uses Facebook to organize parties and other events.

Cell phones are the vehicle for sending “Me 2 U” SMS messages to friends and family members, while young people also use phones to engage in SMS Chat and link up with each other, Some mobile operators offer youth free daily bulletins on news, religious content, motivational messages, jokes or entertainment..

Despite all the potentially beneficial aspects of media and new media for youth, there is the danger that it allows some nefarious characters to prey on others. For example “419” frauds are common, wherein email or senders of text messages try to get others to send them money for the promise of a larger repayment later on (modeled on a famous scam that originated in Nigeria). There is also a need to increase local content in media as opposed to rebroadcast foreign shows, while rural dwellers continue to be largely left out of the media revolution.