Communicating Economic Relief Interventions in President Akufo-Addo’s COVID-19 Crisis Communication Updates 2–8: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This study examines how economic relief interventions were discursively constructed in President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s COVID-19 Updates 2–8 and how the discourse represented confidence and resilience amid economic disruption. Drawing on Fairclough’s (1992, 1995, 2015) Critical Discourse Analysis, the study adopted a qualitative design to analyse transcripts of seven presidential updates delivered between March and April 2020. The analysis focused on economic-relief segments concerning the Coronavirus Alleviation Programme, business support, tax relief, utility subsidies, food assistance, and financial support. Five discourse strategies emerged: policy specification, problem–solution framing, quantification/evidentialisation, beneficiary orientation, and legitimation. Quantification/evidentialisation was most frequent (37 occurrences), followed by policy specification and beneficiary orientation (28 each), legitimation (20), and problem–solution framing (16). These strategies represented government as capable, responsive, and committed, constructing confidence around governmental capacity and responsiveness. Resilience was constructed through problem–solution framing and policy specification, portraying economic disruption as serious but manageable through coordinated intervention and recovery pathways. Beneficiary orientation positioned vulnerable citizens, households, informal workers, and businesses as legitimate recipients of state protection. The study argues that economic-relief discourse functioned not merely to communicate policy but also as a form of crisis governance through which responsibility, institutional capacity, vulnerability, confidence, and resilience were constructed, contributing to scholarship on economic intervention and recovery in Ghana and crisis communication more broadly.