By Etse Sikanku and Kwaku Botwe
1.0 Introduction
How to cite: Sikanku, G.E., & Botwe, K. (2016). Content
Analysis of Questions asked during President Mahama’s Press Conference at the
Flagstaff House. Research Brief, Accra: Ghana
OR
Sikanku & Botwe
(2016) Research Report 1
*Please do not use without citation. For further details, please contact corresponding author at: etse.sikanku@gmail.com
1.0 Introduction
This research examined the nature of
questions asked during President Mahama’s press conference on Tuesday, January
12, 2016. This was the first press conference of the year. Press conferences
constitute an important political communicative apparatus in any deliberative
democracy. They are both political communication events as well as media events
because the president uses the opportunity to directly answer questions from
journalists.
As a tool for political communication, press
conferences are different in the sense that they are rare and unique moments
for direct engagement with the president on important issues of national
concern.
With this in mind, we sought to examine
the nature of questions asked by journalists using several indicators: (a) the
media organizations who had the chance to ask questions (b) the topical
areas/sectors of national concern covered by journalists (c) relevance of the
questions (d) structure or composition of questions in terms of specificity,
(e) structure of question in terms of it was double-barrelled or not (d) tone
of the question in terms of civility and politeness (e) follow –ups (f) the body
language of journalists. This research is significant in the sense that it is
the first systematic attempt to content analyse a presidential press conference
in Ghana in a systematic and social scientific manner.
3.0
Methodology
This research was conducted by using the content
analytic approach to analyze questions asked by journalists during Ghanaian
President John Mahama’s press conference on January 12 2016. This is the first
study of this nature to be employed in Ghana. While content analysis has been
applied to many forms of text or media discourse in Ghana no study has applied
this approach to studying press conferences in Ghana in an empirical manner.
All the major social scientific steps for conducting media content analysis
were followed in undertaking this research.
4.0
General Results
A total of 26 questions
were asked during the press conference. Some journalists asked one question
while others asked more than one. Journalists who asked two questions included
the practitioners from Ghana Palava, Kasapa fm, Two Freelancers, Emefa Apau
from Class fm and Samuel Abloderpey Radio Gold. Joy fm was the only radio
station which had two different journalists asking questions—Kojo Yankson and
Evans Mensah. Both questions were on the issue of corruption. In fact, Evans’
question was a follow up to Kojo Yankson’s question. A tabular representation
is seen below:
Table
1: Media Houses and Questions asked
Media House
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
Joy
fm
|
2
|
7.7
|
CITI
FM
|
1
|
3.8
|
Graphic
|
1
|
3.8
|
Guide
|
1
|
3.8
|
Class
|
1
|
3.8
|
TV3
|
1
|
3.8
|
Palava
|
2
|
7.7
|
Starr
fm
|
1
|
3.8
|
Unique
|
1
|
3.8
|
General
Telegraph
|
1
|
3.8
|
Peace
fm
|
1
|
3.8
|
Daily
Democrat
|
1
|
3.8
|
Kasapa
|
2
|
7.7
|
Freelance
Journalist
|
3
|
11.5
|
Insight
|
1
|
3.8
|
Government
Portal
|
2
|
7.7
|
Bloomberg
|
1
|
3.8
|
Radio
XYZ
|
1
|
3.8
|
Radio
Gold
|
2
|
7.7
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
4.1 Major Thematic Areas
Politics (n=7, 26.9%), the economy (n=7, 26.9%)
and National security issues garnered the highest number of questions. This was
followed by Social issues (n=2, 7.7%) while Health (n=1, 3.8%) , education
(n=1, 3.8%) and energy (n=1, 3.8%) issues received the lowest amount of
questions. There were no questions in other sectors such as sports and
agriculture.
Table 2:
Topics/ Themes
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
Health
|
1
|
3.8
|
Politics
|
7
|
26.9
|
Economics
|
7
|
26.9
|
National Security
|
7
|
26.9
|
Social
|
2
|
7.7
|
Education
|
1
|
3.8
|
Energy
|
1
|
3.8
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
4.2
Relevance of questions
The next major issue investigated in this
research project was the relevance of the questions. In all, there were 18 out
of 26 questions which were relevant constituting 69.2% while 26.9% of the
questions were deemed not so relevant.
Table 3:
Relevance of Questions
Relevance of Question
|
Frequency
|
Percentage
|
Highly Relevant
|
18
|
69.2
|
Moderately/Somewhat
relevant
|
1
|
3.8
|
Not so
relevant/Irrelevant
|
7
|
26.9
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
Questions were also examined in terms of
their specificity. From the table below
57.7% of the questions were found to be specific while 42.3% were found to be
broad and to sweeping. A tabular representation for this variable is presented
below followed by a chart.
Table 5: Specificity of
question
Specificity
of questions
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
Specific
|
15
|
57.7
|
Not
specific/sweeping
|
11
|
42.3
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
4.6
Cross tabulation for Relevance of questions and specificity
In all 12 (66.6%) out of the 18 relevant
questions were found to be both relevant and specific leaving six of them to be
sweeping and too broad. Thus it was possible for a question to be relevant
without being specific. This indicates that though journalists may touch on a
relevant issue, the non-specificity of the question may not portend well for
the answers generated. This does not help journalists adequately perform their
role as mediators of public discourse of holding government accountable. Though
this is not a bad percentage there is still room for improvement.
Table 9: Cross tabulation for Relevance of
questions and specificity
Relevance of
Question/Specificity
|
Specific
|
Not specific/ winding/
broad/sweeping
|
Total
|
Highly Relevant
|
12
|
6
|
18
|
Moderately/Somewhat relevant
|
0
|
1
|
1
|
Not so relevant/Irrelevant
|
3
|
4
|
7
|
Total
|
15
|
11
|
26
|
4.4
Form of question
Questions were investigated to find out
if they were follow-up questions. Only three were follow ups. This included
questions from TV 3 on the Gitmo issue, Class fm on the same Gitmo issue and
Joy Fm’s second question was a follow up on an initial issue. Follow ups are
deemed important in clarifying issues initially raised.
Table 5: Form of
question
Form
of question
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
This
was a follow up question
|
3
|
11.5
|
Non-
follow up
|
23
|
88.5
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
4.5
Body language
Non-verbal actions are seen as forms of
communication. In line with the conceptual underpinning of the research,
discourse is expected to be civil, polite and respectful. This variable helped
us to know whether the body language of journalists showed civility. The
results are represented in the table below.
Gesture
|
Frequency
|
Percent
|
Hands in pocket
|
3
|
11.5
|
Decent
|
23
|
88.5
|
Total
|
26
|
100
|
5.0
Conclusions and recommendation.
All in all the Ghanaian media did not
fair too badly though there is still room for improvement. There are several
areas which if addressed could help improve the exercise. These include: (a)
journalists should be selected to span the different regions of Ghana so that
not just “Accra journalists” or a limited number of journalists are called upon
to ask questions and (b) journalists should cover a variety of national issues
and not just constrict themselves to a few issues. In addition one area that
was lacking was in the specificity of questions. Questions should be well
researched and well premised in order to make them specific, biting and
top-notch. Hopefully this would help journalists fulfill their mandate of
holding government accountable on the specifics of national issues. Also the format of the press conference
should allow for follow-ups. In the absence of this journalists can serve as
their own peer-reviewers by following up on questions which didn’t receive
adequate responses from the president. The report also suggests that press
conferences should be held regularly to help promote
direct presidential engagement with journalists and by extension the general
public. This would help improve accessibility of journalists to the president,
demystify the presidency as well as promote deliberative democracy within
Ghana.