Frames of poverty, a qualitative content analysis of selected newspapers in Ghana

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.