The Representation of Ruling and Opposition Parties in State-owned Newspapers in Contemporary Ghana

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Chapter Four:
Case Study: An Analysis of Political News Articles in Ghana:
Introduction:
In order to sustain my argument that: "can unequal power relations be identified in political news discourses in state-owned newspapers on not explicitly polarised issues?" I would focus on one particular case study, which will be illustrative of the topic in question. The case study will involve an analysis of political news articles published by one of the state-owned Ghanaian newspapers the Daily Graphic on the representation of the Other in Ghana politics.
The case was selected based on a multitude of considerations. Firstly, instead of newspapers in Britain or the United States of America (USA), I decided to focus on a newspaper from Ghana. Secondly, given a common interest in textual analysis, I decided to focus on a newspaper in Ghana as the source of data for my analysis. Furthermore, another consideration involved the fact that articles from a newspaper are easier to collect and document than TV and radio broadcastings. Finally, the articles were selected from the newspaper because of its large circulation and its distinct ideological stances, which makes it representative of the Ghanaian mainstream quality press and the mass media as a whole, both in quantitative terms (that is, number of readers) and in qualitative terms (that is, range of views held by readers).
The Daily Graphic is the leading quality national newspaper (state-owned), with a daily average circulation of 200,000 copies in 2010, established along the UK based Sunday Mirror by Cecil King , a British newspaper magnate in 1950 and considered to be a Ghanaian institution. It is owned by Graphic Communication Group Limited, printed and published in Accra, and dominates the morning market with no serious competition at regional and district level. This explains why the newspaper is a central source of information and considered to be credible by its larger readers, and it is often the

Eric Kwadwo Amissah obtained both his CoMundus European MA degrees in Communication, Media and Cultural Studies from the University of Firenze, Italy and Roskilde University, Denmark in 2011. He obtained both BA in Publishing Studies and MA in Art Education degrees in 1999 and 2006 respectively at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
The author is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Graphic Design Technology, Faculty of Applied Arts and Technology, Takoradi Technical University (formerly Takoradi Polytechnic), Takoradi, Ghana, and a PhD candidate at the University of Education, Winneba, Ghana.
He has solely authored and published two books and co-authored two Graphic Design textbooks. He has also written several articles which have been published in both local and international journals, and participated in numerous seminars, forums and conferences on graphic design and media. He is a Publisher/Printing, Graphic Designer and Media Analyst.
Furthermore, the author is a social commentator and has been featured in radio and television programmes as a media analyst/reviewer on matters relating to politics, economic, social and culture on SKYY 93.5 FM Station Morning Show, Takoradi, Ghana. He is married and has two children.