COVID-19 is described as ‘novel’ largely because the virus has rarely been studied. Without any vaccine, the key to containing the virus was the timely delivery of educative public health information to people. With a population of 29 million composed of small urban segments, Ghana has enormous rural enclaves where most of her citizens live. This study seeks to explore the nature of Ghana’s COVID-19 campaign, focusing on the communication strategies and the extent to which indigenous communication tools (ICTs) have been employed. Relying on document analysis, Ghana’s COVID-19 campaign rarely deployed ICTs but rather paid lip service to the country’s indigenous resources in public addresses to the nation. It also found that the fight against the virus metamorphosed into political campaigns making WHO’s vital information subservient to images of political figures and political iconography in general. We argue that the nature of the campaign created generalized awareness of the pandemic, but did less to educate the masses on the WHO preventive protocols.

中文翻译：

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抗击 COVID-19 大流行的沟通失误：评估加纳的 COVID-19 运动

COVID-19 被描述为“新颖”主要是因为该病毒很少被研究。在没有任何疫苗的情况下，控制病毒的关键是及时向人们提供教育性公共卫生信息。加纳拥有 2900 万人口，由小城市组成，拥有巨大的农村飞地，大多数公民都居住在这里。本研究旨在探索加纳 COVID-19 运动的性质，重点关注传播策略和本土传播工具 (ICT) 的使用程度。依靠文件分析，加纳的 COVID-19 运动很少部署 ICT，而是在公共场合向国家宣传该国的本土资源。它还发现，与病毒的斗争演变为政治运动，使世卫组织的重要信息从属于政治人物形象和一般政治肖像。我们认为，该运动的性质创造了对大流行病的普遍认识，但在教育大众了解世卫组织的预防方案方面做得较少。