BLOGGING DISASTERS: COVERAGE OF APIATE CHEMICAL EXPLOSION ON SELECTED BLOGS IN GHANA

Abstract

The emergence of the internet has led to the proliferation of blogs which provide news-worthy information to people. While scholars have studied blogs globally, very little is known about their coverage of disasters, especially in the Ghanaian context. This study, therefore, investigated how the January 20, 2022, Apiate chemical explosion in the Western Region of Ghana was covered on two Ghanaian blogs. Thirty-nine purposively sampled news stories on the selected blogs are content-analysed to examine the attention given to the stories on the explosion and the frames used to represent them on the blogs. The data collected were thematically analysed through the lens of the agenda-setting theory and the media framing theory. The study's findings revealed that much salience was not placed on stories about the explosion by way of frequency. However, when stories about the explosion appeared on the blogs, salience-directing cues such as images, videos and hyperlinks were attached to signify prominence to the readers. Furthermore, whilst frames of tragedy, hopeless situations and response to action were projected in the stories, the two blogs did not emphasise the responsibility frame, which would have held individuals/companies whose negligence led to the disaster accountable for their actions. Since blogs have become critical news sources for Ghanaians and can set the agenda for the public and policymakers, bloggers need to be circumspect about the nature of coverage given to social issues such as disasters.