Social Media Use in Political Campaign: A Content Analysis of Ghana’s 2020 Presidential Elections

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to uncover the use of social networks in political campaign, analyzing Ghana’s 2020 presidential elections. Social networking has been a significant component of our everyday lives, and it is important to recognize the potential effect that these instruments might have on our democratic process and its impact on politicians' actions. Building on existing literature on political engagement and social media, as well as on the use of social media in election campaign, this study hopes to provide a Ghanaian perspective on the issue. This use of social media greatly surpassed its use for interaction and dialogue with voters, and the issue of whether and how this balance will shift in the future present exciting opportunities for research in this field. Content analysis will be used for this study in order to analyse the use of social media by presidential candidates and political parties during election campaigns. The study will also help determine the extent to which presidential candidates use Facebook and Twitter for their campaign messages and how social media users engages political candidates online as well as the relationship between social media use of candidates and election results.