An assessment of gendered mediation in daily graphic newspapers: the case of the 2020 general elections in Ghana

Abstract

This thesis explores female political underrepresentation in Ghana via a gendered assessment of political news reporting. Firstly, the study (1) gives an overview of female political representation globally and locally; secondly, (2) it describes the role of the media in female political representation globally and locally, and thirdly, (3) it analyzes data obtained from news articles to assess how the portrayal and political coverage of men and women in politics by the Daily Graphic newspaper in Ghana. The data reveals that women in politics in Ghana are generally underrepresented. The news articles analyzed also reveal that women in politics are generally positively covered by the Daily Graphic in terms of story tone and picture enhancement, and equally in terms of shared volume of their representation. However, elements of gendered mediation were identified. From the data, women in politics are disadvantaged in quality of coverage, that is, story size and story content. This thesis gives an in-depth assessment of the various elements of gendered coverage by the Daily Graphic. This study contributes to the broader field of literature on female political representation and gendered mediation.