Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has lauded the relevance of media and marketing communication in attaining post pandemic economic recovery in the country.
According to him, efforts have been made to focus some academic attention on the role of media and advertising in effecting economic growth and development.
Speaking on the theme, media and communication post-covid: A catalyst for socio-economic resurgence, he highlighted the impact of the media’s role in economic growth.
“In all of this, the literature is rich and clear. Without the media and marketing communications adequately playing the role of positive amplification, our full potential in economic growth and development may not be achieved.
“This means that even in ordinary times, if we are to fully achieve our economic growth and development potential, strong marketing communications and media support is required; in times like this after a pandemic, even more. If there’s ever a time to examine the role of media… within the context of what it takes to unleash our full economic potential, that time is now”.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
Media penetration in the country
Coupled with the global economic recession, Mr Nkrumah noted that we are also in times of unprecedented “media penetration”.
He further revealed that social media penetration in Africa currently stands at 16% as at January 2021. To this end, he called for a concerted effort from the public and a shift to achieving a bustling economy.
“Not only has traditional media percolated all over the continent, but social media is even going faster. Social media penetration is increasingly becoming a source of news to many on our continent.
“We are therefore at the intersection of an unprecedented need to engineer economic recovery across Africa at a time when media penetration is deepest. We cannot discount the impact media and marketing communications can have to spur us on or to pull us back.
“There’s little literature on the role of media and communication in that specific agenda. But anecdotal evidence suggests that a strong rallying of the nation around the recovery effort to get the business community and citizenry and the general public to buy into the recovery program and to participate”.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
Media’s role in fight against pandemic
The information minister further revealed that the media has exhibited great economic recovery instincts by playing significant roles globally. This, he explained, was achieved by a robust media and marketing communications.
Mr Nkrumah further elaborated on the support of media and marketing relations in helping to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is clear that when the media stepped up to the plate and played their positive role in influencing the behaviour of society. When the media focused heavily on reporting facts… the evidence is that together, we have made laudable gains in this fight.
“Governments like in Ghana… will roll out their intervention programs. But once again we need strong marketing communications and media compliment to succeed. The state efforts include vaccination, opening up the economy as much as possible… In a robust media and democratic culture like ours, you have to convince the citizen who will not protect himself… and you need the help of the media to succeed at that”.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
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