Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4970-1390
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2026
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication Studies
First Advisor
Dominic Manthey
Abstract
This thesis examines the rhetoric of Kume Prɛko and asks what its major rhetorical appeals were both during 1994 and afterwards. First, I analyze major images and a speech from the protest and identify how it framed the VAT tax as an embodied, urgent issue for all citizens to resist. Then, I consider how Akufo-Addo silenced this "vernacular" memory in favor of his "official" narrative, drawing off the work of John Bodnar. Ultimately, this thesis shows how difficult it is for those in power to remember grassroots dissent in all their complexity but also how hard it is to completely erase it from Ghanaian civic life.
Subject Categories
Communication
Keywords
KUMEPRƐKO, official memory, Presidential rhetoric, Protest rhetoric, public memory, vernacular memory
Number of Pages
96
Publisher
University of South Dakota
Recommended Citation
Harford, Benedicta, "THE RHETORIC AND MEMORY OF KUMEPRƐKO" (2026). Dissertations and Theses. 427.
https://red.library.usd.edu/diss-thesis/427