Visual framing of June 3 flood and fire disaster- a content analysis of four Ghanaian newspapers

Abstract

Photographs of disaster published in newspapers potentially help in the disaster assessment and mitigation measures. Though framing on flood disaster has been researched, visual framing of flood and fire disasters in the Ghanaian context often lacks attention. This study applied the qualitative approach, to finding out how the newspapers framed the June 3 flood and fire disaster in Accra Ghana, whether the news frames used in coverage varied with the newspapers, and how gender played out in the coverage of the disaster. Using Framing, News Judgement and Gender theories, content-analysis 240 photographs used by four Ghanaian daily- Daily Graphic, Daily Guide, Ghanaian Times and Chronicle -newspapers to report on the June 3 flood and fire disaster at Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Thematic analysis of data established that Human Interest is the most dominant frame used by the four newspapers, though Daily Graphic recorded significant frequency of Economic Interest frame. The study also discovered that new frames such as Solidarity and International Compassion were used to represent some of the photographs. State owned newspapers (Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times) gave prominence to the incumbent president in the political frame while the private newspapers (Daily Guide and The Chronicle) projected the opposition candidate. However, all newspapers largely portrayed the politicians (political frame) in a positive tone and the economic and human interest in the negative tone. Besides, most women (females) were significantly framed as ‘passive’ while men (males) were framed as ‘active’ in the disaster response and recovery process. The study recommends that disaster risk communication education must be part of newspaper publications in Ghana, in order to raise levels of awareness, on disaster risk among the general population.