Political Communication and Public Relations in the Ghanaian Media: Building an Emotional Environment with Propaganda

Abstract

Politician and managers of all types need to be able to communicate with their constituents successfully. Increasingly, they must communicate in both the ‘old’ and ‘new’ media using political communication and public relations to persuade their target audience. Political communication and public relations management describes the overall planning and execution of a political party’s communication strategy to its external and internal publics in order to achieve its goals. This chapter discusses how political parties in Ghana use publicity in the media to reach their political audience other than direct customer centred campaigns. Through a content analysis of the two major newspapers aligned to the two major political parties (NDC and NPP) in Ghana, this chapter defines and presents a multi-discourse perspective of political propaganda instead of political persuasions in political communication and public relations delivery. The study applied content analysis in its data analysis of the two major newspapers aligned to the philosophies of the two major parties in Ghana, National Democratic Congress and New Patriotic Party.