A lecturer and Head of the Department of Public Relations at the University of Media, Arts and Communication (UniMAC), Dr. Noel Nutsugah, has cautioned Ghanaian politicians to rethink their communication strategies, arguing that the traditional approach of controlling political messages is no longer effective in the digital age.
According to him, politicians who continue to communicate as though information is scarce and difficult for citizens to verify risk losing public trust and credibility.
In a Facebook post on Monday, August 24, 2026, Dr. Nutsugah urged Ghanaian politicians to “wake up and smell the coffee,” stressing that the communication environment has changed significantly.
“In my candid opinion, I think Ghanaian politicians must wake up and smell the coffee,” he wrote.
Dr. Nutsugah, who also works as a public relations consultant, said he had become increasingly concerned about the way some politicians communicate, particularly their apparent reliance on methods that may have been effective in an era when citizens had limited access to information.
“As a public relations consultant, I have become increasingly fascinated and sometimes concerned by how some Ghanaian politicians communicate in this day and age,” he said.
“Quite frankly, some still communicate as though we are living in the pre-2000 era, when information was scarce, verification was difficult and the politician could make a claim and move on before anyone had the means to challenge it.”
Dr. Nutsugah noted that the emergence of social media, digital archives and online news platforms has fundamentally altered the relationship between politicians and the electorate.
He explained that virtually every public statement made by a political figure can now be recorded, searched, retrieved and compared with previous statements.
“Today, every statement made by a politician is potentially searchable, recordable, shareable and verifiable within minutes,” he stated.
He illustrated the point by noting that a statement made by a politician at a rally in Tamale in the morning could be subjected to scrutiny before midday, with citizens potentially producing old videos, newspaper reports, parliamentary records or social media posts that contradict the politician’s current position.
“A politician can say something at a rally in Tamale in the morning and, before lunch, someone can pull out a video, newspaper report, parliamentary record or social media post from five years ago showing that the same politician said something entirely different,” he said.
The UniMAC lecturer said politicians can no longer depend solely on sympathetic media outlets or loud political messaging to shape public opinion.
He argued that the digital environment has effectively equipped citizens with their own tools for examining and challenging political claims.
“The digital environment has essentially given citizens their own fact-checking infrastructure,” Dr. Nutsugah said.
He explained that citizens no longer have to wait for the following day’s newspapers or evening television and radio news bulletins before scrutinising claims made by political actors.
“They don’t have to wait for tomorrow’s newspaper or the 6:00pm news bulletin. They can verify your claim while you are still speaking,” he added.
Dr. Nutsugah further described the modern Ghanaian citizen as more than a passive recipient of political information, pointing out that citizens can simultaneously serve as publishers, archivists, commentators and fact-checkers.
This, he suggested, has significantly weakened the ability of political actors to control narratives simply through strategic messaging.
At the heart of his argument is a call for political public relations in Ghana to move away from what he described as “message management” towards “credibility management.”
He stressed that effective public relations should not be limited to crafting attractive messages or defending political actors, but must also be anchored in truth, consistency and accountability.
According to Dr. Nutsugah, public relations professionals cannot manufacture credibility where it does not exist.
His comments suggest that political actors must increasingly recognise that their past statements, decisions and positions form part of their public record and can easily resurface when they make new claims.
Dr. Nutsugah also warned political leaders against underestimating the ability of today’s electorate to identify communication strategies that appear to treat citizens as gullible.
He said the Ghanaian electorate has evolved considerably, particularly because of increased access to digital platforms and information from multiple sources.
“The Ghanaian politician needs to understand that we are no longer communicating with the Ghanaian electorate of twenty or thirty years ago,” he stated.
“We are communicating with a digitally connected citizenry that has access to information from multiple sources and increasingly expects accountability.”
His comments come at a time when political communication in Ghana is increasingly taking place across traditional media, social media platforms and other digital channels, making public statements more accessible and easier to scrutinise than in previous decades.
Dr. Nutsugah’s warning therefore places emphasis not only on how politicians communicate, but also on whether their messages are consistent with their records and whether they can withstand independent scrutiny.
The broader message is that political communication in the digital era may require less emphasis on simply controlling the narrative and greater attention to building and preserving credibility—because once trust is lost, no amount of message management may be enough to restore it.
By 1960news.com
