CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
- Background of the Study
Not all foreign countries get covered every day in the media. Is news on some foreign countries given more prominence than others, and therefore are there any significant reasons why? This subject has been scrutinised by several mass communication researchers (see Galtung & Ruge, 1965; Robinson & Sparkes, 1976; Nnaemeka & Richstad, (1981) and Sreberny-Mohammadi et al, 1984). The focus of these studies however has been directed mostly at the developed world, especially the United States of America (USA) and some other Western European countries. This has led to calls for further research in other regions in the world especially in Asia and Africa which present different socio-cultural and economic circumstances. According to Wu (2000) and Segev (2015), this would lend further credence to the validity of foreign news value determinants identified in earlier studies as universal predictors of foreign news coverage. These universal predictors, which Boyd (1994) referred to as foreign ‘newsworthiness‘, explains how news is covered and why certain issues are likely to be given attention by the media.
The universal predictors which may be considered as key determinants of foreign news coverage in domestic press according to Golan (2006) may include the cultural affinity and location in the hierarchy of nations. He further argued that inter-media agenda setting of international news sources was also crucial in determining what gets attention in the media. Hence, press houses usually follow news setting agendas of other international media sources of which they are dependent on for stories. Events therefore taking place in foreign countries far away and those that a country shares common ties with get covered in the local press because of dependence on other international news sources. This study therefore hopes to identify highly visible countries
and less visible countries in the Ghanaian press and investigate whether African countries would be given prominence over western countries due to the closeness and ties they share as Africans.
He (2003) noted that since the 1960s most of the studies on determinants of foreign news failed to acknowledge that different news topics were directed by different criteria of news worthiness and that foreign news worthiness is largely influenced by the ties that a country shares with other foreign nations. It is therefore important and timely to further conduct studies to establish how these universal determinants of foreign news values also influence the coverage of news on foreign countries in the developing world with its peculiar inherent characteristics. This study seeks to investigate what constitute foreign news in the Ghanaian press and to establish whether the cultural affinity Ghana shares with other foreign nations influences how the Ghanaian press covers other foreign events and actors. The Daily Graphic and the Ghanaian Times were used as case studies.
           Problem Statement
Key determinants of what makes events in foreign countries newsworthy are linked to variables such as cultural, geographical, ideological (socio-political) orientations, colonial ties, regionalism, economic relations among other variables including bilateral trade flows, GDP, and population (Wu, 2000; Cooper-Chen, 2001; Wanta & Chang, 2001; Couldry & Markham, 2008; Jones et al, 2011). Yet these studies largely focused on the trend of the flow of news between the developed countries as core and developing countries as periphery.
According to Chang (1998) and Wu (2000; 2003), whilst other paradigms were on the equity of attention given to core countries and periphery countries, others focused on key determinants of foreign news. Chang et al (2000) explained that such paradigms confirm that core countries dominate in foreign news coverage.
However, there is paucity of information to conclude the situation to be the same in the developing world. With an emerging and vibrant media in the developing world, it is imperative that more investigations are undertaken to understand the matter. This will help establish whether the diversity of foreign news in the Ghanaian press could be influenced by cultural affinity (Wanta & Chang, 2001; Couldry & Markham, 2008) and international media agendas setting of news sources (Golan, 2006).
