Reality effect or media effect? Television's moulding of the environmental sanitation agenda in Ghana

Mass media have a responsibility to popularise social and developmental issues. This is a central thesis of the normative view of mass media and development. Given the precarious nature of environmental sanitation in the West African country, Ghana, what is the nature of media coverage of environmental sanitation? And how does media coverage relate to people's perceptions of and attitudes toward the problem? While it may be counterintuitive for people to rely on media as sources of information on an obtrusive problem such as environmental sanitation, using content/frame analysis and a survey, this article suggests the potential of mass media (television news) in Ghana to project particular worldviews relating to issues that audiences encounter in their daily lives – a mechanism this article refers to as agenda moulding. Thus, even for obtrusive social and development issues such as environmental sanitation, the nature and level of media coverage matters.