PROPAGANDA AS A MEANS OF PERSUASION BY STUDENT LEADERS: A STUDY OF GRADUATE STUDENTS’ ELECTIONS IN TWO UNIVERSITIES IN GHANA

Andrews Kwakwa Peprah, Albert Agbesi Wornyo

Abstract


This study investigated the use and effect of propaganda as a political communication tool in students’ politics in two institutions in Ghana. The focus of the study was on elections of student leaders at the graduate level at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and University of Education, Winneba (UEW). With Political propaganda theory and Aristotle’s persuasion appeals as the theoretical framework, the manifestoes of candidates who contested the positions of President and Secretary were analysed to unearth the use of propaganda techniques in them. Questionnaires were used to collect data from student voters to determine the influence of propaganda techniques on their voting patterns. The findings revealed that candidates employed the propaganda techniques of name-calling, glittering generalities, transfer, bandwagon and card-stacking in their manifestoes. The desire to win power made student politicians employ these propaganda techniques as political communication tools in the graduate students’ elections in both institutions. Data collected from the student voters in the two institutions also indicated that the propaganda techniques of card-stacking and plain folks influenced some of the student voters but the majority of the student voters were not. The study concluded that although propaganda is used in students’ politics, it may not be very effective as it is in national politics. The study recommended that further studies are needed to detect the presence and effect of propaganda in elections in students’ associations at the national level.

 

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


elections, manifestoes, persuasion, propaganda, students’ politics

Full Text:

PDF

References


Abugre, J. B. (2017). Political communication and public relations in the Ghanaian media: Building an emotional environment with propaganda. Political marketing and Management in Ghana, 16(207), 3, 17-31.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57373-1_2

Al-Ameedi, R. T. K. & Khudhier, Z. A. H. (2015). A pragmatic study of Barak Obama's political propaganda. Journal of Education and Practice, 6(20), 75-86. www.iiste.org.

Baran, S. J., & Davis, D. K. (2012). Mass communication theory: Foundations, ferment, and future (6th Ed.). Cengage Learning.

Bjola, C. (2018). Propaganda in the digital age. Global Affairs, 3(3), 189-191. https://doi/10.1080/23340460.2017.1427694

Bowen, A. (2004). Expansion of ethics as the tenth generic principle of public relations excellence: A Kantian theory and model for managing ethical issues. Journal of Public Relations, 1(16), 65– 92.

Brunello, A. R. (2014). A moral compass and modern propaganda? Charting ethical and political discourse. Review of History and Political Science, 2(2), 169-197.

Durmaz, Y. (2011). A theoretical approach to the concept of advertising in marketing. International Journal of Economics and Research (IJER). 2. 46-50.

Fitzmaurice, K. (2018). Propaganda. Brock Educational Journal, 27(2).

Garver, E. (1995). Aristotle’s Rhetoric: An art of character. University of Chicago Press.

Greco, F. (2018). The rule of persuasion in the marketing process. Psychology and Behavioural Science International Journal, 9(10).

Gyampo, R. E. V. (2012). The youth and political ideology in Ghanaian politics: The case of the fourth republic. Africa Development, 37(2), 137–165.

Hamdani, S. S. M. (2017). Techniques of Online Propaganda: A Case Study of Western Sahara Conflict. International Journal of Media, Journalism and Mass Communications (IJMJMC). 3(2), 18-24, 24549479.

Harwani, S. (2019). Propaganda and marketing: A review. Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (JETIR), 6(7).

Heller, R. (2021). Understanding propaganda: A conversation with Renee Hobbs. Phi Delta Kappan, 102(5), 33–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0031721721992563

Hobbs, R., Seyferth-Zapf, C., & Grafe, S. (2018). Using virtual exchange to advance media literacy competencies through analysis of contemporary propaganda. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 10(2), 152-168. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2018-10-2-9

Jowett, G. S. & O’Donnell, V. J. (2019). Propaganda and persuasion. Sage Publications.

Lasswell, H. D. (1927) The theory of political propaganda. The American Political Science Review, 21(3), 627-631.

Nieubuurt, J. T. (2021). Internet memes: Leaflet propaganda of the digital age. Frontiers in Communication, 5, 547065. https://doi.10.3389/fcomm.2020.547065

Paalo, S. A. & Gyampo, R. E. V. (2019). Campus politics and intra-party vote buying in Ghana: How political mentorship can destruct. Journal of student affairs in Africa, 7(2), 123-141.

Ross, A. S. & Rivers, D. J. (2017). Digital cultures of political participation: internet memes and the discursive delegitimization of the 2016 U.S presidential candidates. Discourse Context Media, 16, 1. https://doi.10.1016/j.dcm.2017.01.001

Ross, K. & Burger, T. (2014). Face-to-face (book): Social media, political campaigning and the unbearable lightness of being there. Political Science, 66(1), 46–62. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0032318714534106

Sproule, J. M. (2001). Authorship and origins of the seven propaganda devices: A research note. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, 4(1), 135-143.

Sproule, J. M. (2001). Rhetoric and public affairs. Michigan State University Press.

Wilbur, D. (2017). Propaganda’s place in strategic communication: The case of ISIL’s

Dabiq Magazine. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 11(3), 1-15. https://doi.:10.1080/1553118X.2017.1317636

Wimberly, C. (2019). How propaganda became public relations: Foucault and the corporate government of the public. Routledge.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejpss.v6i2.1455

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2023 Andrews Kwakwa Peprah, Albert Agbesi Wornyo

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The research works published in this journal are free to be accessed. They can be shared (copied and redistributed in any medium or format) and\or adapted (remixed, transformed, and built upon the material for any purpose, commercially and\or not commercially) under the following terms: attribution (appropriate credit must be given indicating original authors, research work name and publication name mentioning if changes were made) and without adding additional restrictions (without restricting others from doing anything the actual license permits). Authors retain the full copyright of their published research works and cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms are followed.

Copyright © 2017 - 2023. European Journal Of Political Science Studies (ISSN 2601-2766) is a registered trademark. All rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library. All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms. All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and standards formulated by Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (2003) and  Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003) and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Copyrights of the published research works are retained by authors.


 

Hit counter