These last two days, I have been attending a conference at the Accra International Conference Center held by the Ministry of Communications. The conference is discussing the Broadcasting Bill and how Ghana is changing its regulations and policies to improve control over what is televised on local channels and the balance between foreign and local content. The Cyber Security Policy addresses how the government can better protect its privacy as well as the privacy of citizens.

The various stakeholders debated 18 different pillars of the bill. On the first day of the conference, many people raised questions and concerns about whether foreign programs such as telenovelas should be presented on Ghanaian channels. Participants argued that children as well as other people in society are erroneously learning about what their culture “should be” from these programs.

Many in attendance argued that there needs to be more Ghanaian culture on TV stations. They want to include more local dialects on stations and broadcast local Ghanaian TV shows and news.

Another topic was MTV and how music videos that present global pop stars such as Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are influencing the children of Ghana. Many argued that children are learning how to behave from outside global stars instead of learning their local languages and indigenous traditions. They would like to create a pillar of the bill focused on child protection and censorship of channels that are not deemed appropriate for children.

The second day of the conference focused on the Cyber Security Policy. The updated draft incorporates national and global security efforts on cyber crime as well as how Ghana can take preventative measures to uphold security and privacy for Ghanaian citizens, businesses, and the government.  One person brought up the question of, “To whom do we delegate responsibility to protect the privacy of the people? And how do we determine what they consider to be private?”

I found that a lot of the points were very interesting and intriguing to think about. If government is charged to “protect” the privacy of citizens and businesses, how are the citizens protected from the government? The answer is that they are not. No one is truly protected, not even the government, because the government’s information even gets hacked into. The Cyber Security Policy aims to control cyber crime even more with tighter securities and better systems that protect against hackers.

The overall discussion presented a lot of questions and concerns related to the different pillars of the Broadcasting Bill and what should be added to or taken out of it. I feel that I learned a lot about the broadcasting conditions in Ghana regarding their current policies as well as future plans are for the new updated version.