Democracy, the public sphere, and power elites: examining the Ghanaian private media’s role in political corruption

Can media liberalization and freedoms make the private media a powerful anti-corruption force in developing countries such as Ghana? Contrary to the popular view that media freedom, pluralism, and competition can help tackle corruption, I argue that democratic freedoms are not adequate safeguards for private media to fight political corruption. In doing so, I use primary data and media reports, Habermas’s theory of the public sphere, and Mills’s theory of power elites. Despite Ghana’s prevailing democratic freedoms, this study indicates that Ghanaian private media actively contribute to political corruption through biased reporting, propaganda peddling, indulgence in corruption, weak investigative journalism, and limited follow-up reporting. By examining whether Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and Mills’s theory of the power elites apply to the African context, this article makes significant contributions to both the theoretical and empirical literature. Policy and future research implications are presented in the conclusion.