Media Plan On Peaceful Elections in Ghana

Situational Analysis:

The high level of electoral competitiveness among parties who strive to make inroads during elections often spark electoral violence and political intolerance in Ghana.  The electoral violence is mostly led by the youth who are exposed to being used by politicians to perpetrate violence.

Campaign background

Elections in Ghana has over the years been characterised with vigorous political activities. Political parties and their supporters are often seen crisscrossing one another soliciting for votes. High on the hills of the scramble for power, the country youth are seen at the center stage sparking unrest. According to the 2010 population census Ghana recorded a population of 24,658,823 with the youthful population being almost 5million. This means Ghana as a country has a youthful population. This youth group exude lots of energy and ambitions which are often misused by some politicians to cause mayhem during elections. Some areas in Ghana have experienced election-risk indicators such as defacement of posters, physical harm, verbal harassment, intimidation, rumours, allegations and threat of violence over the years. The campaign for conflict free elections in 2016 has been captioned “VOTE NOT FIGHT IN 2016!” This slogan has been chosen to passionately appeal to Ghanaians to maintain peace during and after the elections in 2016.

Campaign Objectives

Our objective is to reach out to about 70% of Ghanaian youths through organizing forums or town hall meetings that focuses on discussions on the importance of peaceful co-existence before during and after the general elections.

Seasonality: The campaign is expected to be at its peak the last two weeks of November to herald the general elections in December.

Continuity/flighting : The campaign on the media would commence at a go and would heighten throughout the electioneering period.

Creative Constrains: since the campaign is to appeal to the conscience of the citizens, more of the messages would be packaged in audio and visual forms.

Reach and frequency: The campaign message would be run on all major media outlets continuously.

 

Strategy

Our Strategy is to engage opinion leaders in the country particularly in areas identified as hotbed of political activities or presumably volatile areas. We shall engage them through interviews using the various media platforms and publish their thoughts and experiences on how to sustain Ghana’s democracy by ensuring conflict free elections in 2016.  Our interview is structured to enable Opinion Leaders, Assembly Members, Traditional and Community Leaders give insights as to how to ensure zero conflicts in their constituency.

Allocation: We intend to allocate money to media houses that are mostly patronized according to their respective categories. This means that under new media, we shall choose a virtual platform that is largely patronized by the youth. Also under print media we shall go in for a newspaper that has a large circulations. And with the electronic media we would choose a TV or Radio that has large audience or viewership.

Seasonal cost: We don’t envisage so much cost in this campaign since the season has called for similar campaigns and the various media houses are ever ready to boost their content with peace related programs.

Evaluation

Drawn from strategy, critical analysis of interviews conducted and information collected will be done to draw policies that will be adopted to ensure conflict free elections within the constituencies in focus.

Organizing resources to ensure plans are executed following keenly the draft policy made from insights collated from the Opinion and community leaders. Implementation will take the form of the following:

1.  Organizing forums in line with insights at town hall meetings to discuss common issues of national importance and individual contribution to maintaining law and order in his/her locality and the nation at large.

2.  Education and sensitization of targeted Citizen Groups ( youths) on the importance maintaining a peaceful atmosphere before, during and after the elections

3.  Publicity (hanging of banners at vantage locations & sensitization periodically.

4.  Using social media platforms to raise issues and encourage discussions

5.  One on One engagement and Radio sensitization.

6.  Organizing a peace concert at volatile areas, capturing from TV stations and projecting voting as it is been done across the nation on a real time basis.                                      

       

                               CONCLUSION

It is our belief that, with your supports, the necessary funds and training together with corresponding logistics, our dreams of contributing to the sustainability and enhancements of the current peace enjoyed in Ghana would be realized before, during and after the upcoming general elections.