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The State of the Nation Address is one of the most important public speeches of a president because it sets the tone, framework and plans of the administration in any given year. This research contributes to contemporary scholarly studies by systematically studying presidential discourse within a growing African democracy – from a communication perspective – rather than the routine generic policy analysis. Since communication is a vital aspect of governance, the present study helps to unearth the policy priorities and framework that characterized a major administration under Ghana’s democracy. From a broader perspective, the textual analysis of this speech offers a modest attempt to examine some elements of political communication within Africa’s democratization process. The major objectives of the study were twofold: (a) first, to analyse the major topics or subject areas embedded in the speech and (b) to ascertain the recurring essential thematic elements of the State of the Nation Address as postulated by Shogan. The results indicate that the social agenda (including sanitation, housing and social amenities) was the central focus of the President’s address, followed by politics, while economic affairs featured as the third predominant issue in the address. Three thematic elements – bipartisanship, past and future, and optimism – are discursively analysed. This study contributes to the study of political communication and Presidential agendas in one of Africa’s fledgling democracies.

Inter-media agenda setting has assumed growing relevance in the field of media and communication studies. However, there is still a paucity of research regarding how the concept operates within the African media landscape. This research attempts to extend the inter-media agenda-setting concept to sub-Saharan Africa by examining relationships between a wire service (Ghana News Agency [GNA]-ghananewsagency.com) and the online versions of three other news organizations in Ghana (dailyguide. com, dailygraphic.com, and Ghanaweb.com). Results indicate that GNA's agenda at Time 1 influenced the issue agendas of Daily Guide, Daily Graphic, and Ghanaweb at Time 2. There were no reciprocal relationships between the three other news media and GNA. While few previous studies have researched this subject, the present study argues that subjecting inter-media agenda-setting dynamics in Ghana to further tests enables us to better understand the theory's utility in an emerging African media terrain.

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