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Using Social Media to Campaign: Are Ghanaian Political Parties Getting It Right

Received: 11 January 2020    Accepted: 3 February 2020    Published: 11 February 2020
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Abstract

It is an undeniable fact that in recent years internet usage has increased in the area of information dissemination in Ghana. Indeed, when the roll call is made Ghana would not be found wanting on the league of African countries with internet penetration and social media usage. According to Ramamohanarao et al, (2007), interment usage has become one of the easiest tools for seeking information and the fastest for that matter in communicating with friends and loved ones. Due to the comparative advantage, social media has over traditional media, it has become a means by which many are using it to reach their targeted audience at the shortest possible time. The study investigates how some selected supporters of the two major political parties in Ghana, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) use social media platforms to campaign for and to woo potential voters for their respective parties. The study was undertaken as desk research and the research relied on secondary sources with particular reference to posts of some supporters of the two leading parties in Ghana, who have all in the last two to three decades have had the opportunity of ruling in the country ever since the country returned to democratic rule. The results revealed that indeed supporters of the two major political parties through social media with particular reference to Facebook use the internet to both propagate the ideologies and philosophies of their political parties, making social media a vital platform for campaigning and also allowing the Ghanaian populace to participate in political activities.

Published in Social Sciences (Volume 9, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14
Page(s) 32-39
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Social Media, Platform, Political Parties, NPP and NDC

References
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[7] Eysenbach, G. (2008). Medicine Social Networking, Collaboration, Participation, Apo mediation, and Openness. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 10 (3).
[8] Friedman, T. (2007). World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. Picador.
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[10] Gruzd, A., Staves, K., & Wilk, A. (2012). Connected scholars: Examining the role of social media in research practices of faculty using the UTAUT model. Computers in Human Behavior, 28 (6), 2340–2350. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.07.004
[11] Kuss, D. J., Griffiths, M. D., & Binder, J. F. (2013). Internet addiction in students: Prevalence and risk factors. Computers in Human Behavior, 29 (3), 959–966. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2012.12.024
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[13] Ramamohanarao, K., Gupta, K. K., Peng, T., & Leckie, C. (2007). The Curse of Ease of Access to the Internet. Information Systems Security Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 234–249. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-77086-2_18
[14] Social Media and Politics - The New Power of Political Influence. (2012, December). Retrieved December 27, 2019, from https://www.martenscentre.eu/publications/social-media-and-politics-power-political-influence
[15] Thomas, T. L. (n.d.). Al Qaeda and the internet: The Dangers of “Cyber Planning.” Retrieved December 23, 2019, from http://7.iwar.org.uk/cyberterror/resources/cyberplanning /thomas.pdf
[16] Weimann G., (2016) Onlineterrorists prey on the vulnerable, YaleGlobal Online, 5 March 2008 http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/online-terrorists-prey-vulnerable (23/12/19)
Cite This Article
  • APA Style

    Emmanuel Abeku Essel. (2020). Using Social Media to Campaign: Are Ghanaian Political Parties Getting It Right. Social Sciences, 9(1), 32-39. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14

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    ACS Style

    Emmanuel Abeku Essel. Using Social Media to Campaign: Are Ghanaian Political Parties Getting It Right. Soc. Sci. 2020, 9(1), 32-39. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14

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    AMA Style

    Emmanuel Abeku Essel. Using Social Media to Campaign: Are Ghanaian Political Parties Getting It Right. Soc Sci. 2020;9(1):32-39. doi: 10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14,
      author = {Emmanuel Abeku Essel},
      title = {Using Social Media to Campaign: Are Ghanaian Political Parties Getting It Right},
      journal = {Social Sciences},
      volume = {9},
      number = {1},
      pages = {32-39},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ss.20200901.14},
      abstract = {It is an undeniable fact that in recent years internet usage has increased in the area of information dissemination in Ghana. Indeed, when the roll call is made Ghana would not be found wanting on the league of African countries with internet penetration and social media usage. According to Ramamohanarao et al, (2007), interment usage has become one of the easiest tools for seeking information and the fastest for that matter in communicating with friends and loved ones. Due to the comparative advantage, social media has over traditional media, it has become a means by which many are using it to reach their targeted audience at the shortest possible time. The study investigates how some selected supporters of the two major political parties in Ghana, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) use social media platforms to campaign for and to woo potential voters for their respective parties. The study was undertaken as desk research and the research relied on secondary sources with particular reference to posts of some supporters of the two leading parties in Ghana, who have all in the last two to three decades have had the opportunity of ruling in the country ever since the country returned to democratic rule. The results revealed that indeed supporters of the two major political parties through social media with particular reference to Facebook use the internet to both propagate the ideologies and philosophies of their political parties, making social media a vital platform for campaigning and also allowing the Ghanaian populace to participate in political activities.},
     year = {2020}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
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    AU  - Emmanuel Abeku Essel
    Y1  - 2020/02/11
    PY  - 2020
    N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14
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    T2  - Social Sciences
    JF  - Social Sciences
    JO  - Social Sciences
    SP  - 32
    EP  - 39
    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2326-988X
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ss.20200901.14
    AB  - It is an undeniable fact that in recent years internet usage has increased in the area of information dissemination in Ghana. Indeed, when the roll call is made Ghana would not be found wanting on the league of African countries with internet penetration and social media usage. According to Ramamohanarao et al, (2007), interment usage has become one of the easiest tools for seeking information and the fastest for that matter in communicating with friends and loved ones. Due to the comparative advantage, social media has over traditional media, it has become a means by which many are using it to reach their targeted audience at the shortest possible time. The study investigates how some selected supporters of the two major political parties in Ghana, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) use social media platforms to campaign for and to woo potential voters for their respective parties. The study was undertaken as desk research and the research relied on secondary sources with particular reference to posts of some supporters of the two leading parties in Ghana, who have all in the last two to three decades have had the opportunity of ruling in the country ever since the country returned to democratic rule. The results revealed that indeed supporters of the two major political parties through social media with particular reference to Facebook use the internet to both propagate the ideologies and philosophies of their political parties, making social media a vital platform for campaigning and also allowing the Ghanaian populace to participate in political activities.
    VL  - 9
    IS  - 1
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Author Information
  • Department of Public Administration, National University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary

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