Social Media Driving Perceptions and Opinions
By Kwabena Osei Owusu Ababio · 6 May 2026 · Politics & Governance
The brouhaha on social media yesterday about Air Ghana/Ghana Airways just mirrors how influencers on social media have become tools to drive perceptions/opinions. Yesterday's episode is a textbook example of how social media collapses the distance between statement and belief, and how perception can harden before anyone checks the registry or official release. When a few voices are treated as unquestioned “apostles of the truth,” people stop asking for primary sources and just run with the narrative. That’s the leverage politicians and other actors are learning to use: you don’t need to control the traditional media outlet anymore. You just need an influencer’s platform and the audience’s trust. It’s low-cost, high-speed opinion shaping, and it isn’t tied to one party or one side — it’s available to anyone with resources and a message. It’s amplified here for two reasons. First, there’s a cultural tendency to defer to figures framed as moral voices, so pushback often feels like disloyalty rather than due diligence. Second, Ghana’s media ecosystem is still thin on verification infrastructure, so corrections rarely travel as far or as fast as the original post. The balance has already shifted. Traditional media in Ghana still carries weight, especially radio and TV with older demographics and for official confirmations, but it’s no longer setting the agenda. Social media does that now, and traditional outlets often end up reacting to it rather than leading it. The real counterweight will be whether Ghanaians start demanding sourcing with the same urgency they demand speed. Without that, we’ll keep seeing manufactured moments that stick because they feel true, not because they are. Interesting months and years ahead indeed.