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Abstract

This paper examines public discourse on data and digital infrastructure in Ghana to understand how dominant actors are framing the conversation to galvanise support for the implementation of the technology in the country and its consequences. Using publicly available information on social media, this paper finds that the discourse is led by the government, contending with consistent optimism and iterations from an abstract idea of data positivism that data and digital infrastructure are prerequisites for the country's development. The government claims that building digital infrastructure would accelerate the digitalisation of the country to increase data flow. Hence, going digital with its immense data outcome would then become a means to fighting corruption, ensuring smooth and efficient governance and ensuring economic development. By carefully selecting and presenting these benefits of the technology to the public, the discourse goes unchallenged becoming the sole truth to which citizens have to believe.

Keywords

Digital infrastructure digitalisation in Ghana Mahamudu Bawumia Vice-President of Ghana Ghana digital acceleration project data and digital infrastructure

Introduction

Technical advances in smart ubiquitous networked computing and the internet in general have increased the generation and flow of digital data to an unprecedented level in human history (Kitchin, 2014a). For example, the former chief of Google Eric Schmidt said in 2010, “There [were] five exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003, but that much information is now created every two days, and the pace is increasing” (cited in Einav and Levin, 2014; p. 1). To put this amount of data in perspective, one exabyte equals one billion gigabytes. This shows how our modern society is increasingly becoming data-driven. Even more importantly, society is not just producing data, but increasingly deifying them, in what Shannon Mattern, faculty member of the School of Media Studies at The New School elucidates as “the newest purported cure to many of the world's most ‘wicked’ problems, they’re shaping discourses, policies, and practices in our war rooms, our board rooms, our classrooms, our operating rooms, and even around our dinner tables” (cited in Kitchin, 2014b; p. 5).

As we swim through this data deluge (Smolan and Erwitt, 2012) amid its discourses, policies and practices, all these have been largely centred in the technologically advanced Global North, although some scholars have attempted to draw parallels on the current data practices and previous exploitation of under-privileged population in an expression like data colonialism (Couldry and Mejias, 2019; Couldry and Mejias, 2020; Mohamed et al., 2020), making it a global challenge, there are still interesting data practices happening in the less technological developed Global South, where as a result of global trade and interdependence, has been integrated into the dominant capitalist system of the North, allowing for the diffusion of data and its related technology.

This means that to understand the global situation on data and society, we should continue to encourage more scholarly inquiries on data matters in the Global South. To contribute to this endeavour, this paper focuses on a Global South country Ghana that is not only convinced of data and digital infrastructure in the epistemological sense as in the Global North (Kitchin, 2014a) but also as an essential prerequisite for national development (Boakye et al., 2021). For example, the World Bank is supporting the country to implement the Ghana Digital Acceleration Project (GDAP) to expand “access to broadband, enhance the efficiency and experience of selected digital public services, and strengthen the digital innovation ecosystem” (World Bank, 2022: para 1). The government claims this would enable the country “to create an enabling environment for digital inclusion and innovation; streamline governance and delivery of public services; and facilitate smallholder engagement in data-driven digital agriculture” (MyJoyonline, 2023; para. 3) to create jobs for the growing population to boost economic development. The GDAP is thus aimed at building the digital infrastructure upon which daily activities in the country can be converted into a data stream for decision-making and other purposes. To achieve this goal, there is an ongoing discourse on data and digital infrastructure in the country.

Adu et al. (2016) trace Ghana's digitalisation efforts to the 1980s—when the country acted on recommendations from its International Development Partners including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the International Telecommunication Union to allow private funding in the telecommunication sector of the economy. This they claim gained momentum in the early 2000s and has motivated the current desire to digitalise the country. To this end, Kpessa-Whyte and Dzisah (2022) argue that “digitalisation is the new buzzword for policy makers and other government officials in Ghana”, further explaining:

This largely is because it [digitalisation] is seen as a means for citizens to obtain basic public services through electronic means, including having access to government information, enabling transactions with government agencies and departments, without the constraints often imposed by time and space, and in the process promote transparency, reduce corruption, and promote availability of services to all citizens. (p. 20)

These benefits of the technology have convinced the ruling elite that it is in the best interest of the country to digitalise, spurring optimism that shapes the discourse on digital infrastructure in an asymmetric dimension between the citizens and the ruling elite. Thus, the context of digitalisation in Ghana and its discourse is primarily from the lenses of the ruling elite.

But following Shannon Mattern's claim that data are shaping our discourses, this paper examines the framing of discourse on data and digital infrastructure in Ghana to understand how it is being done to gain public acceptance of the technology, and the consequence of such action. This is the appropriate time to conduct the inquiry as the discourse is in motion in the country. Furthermore, the country is currently busy building the infrastructure to increase data flow. For example, in May 2023, the country announced the construction of a new data centre in the capital Accra, as part of the African Data Centres funded partially by the United States government's International Development Finance Corporation (Swinhoe, 2023). This allows for the examination of discourses and perspectives on burgeoning technology like data and its infrastructure in their infancy to know how society fetishes them. So the paper seeks to understand the ongoing discourse in Ghana by asking an overarching question:

How is the discourse on data and its related digital infrastructure framed by dominant state actor/s for public acceptance, and what does it mean for the country?

Relying on publicly available information, the paper examines speeches made by the Vice President of Ghana, Mohamud Bawumia on data and digital infrastructure between January 2022 and December 2022 on social media to understand the coherent position of the government of Ghana on building digital infrastructure. As social media has become a powerful medium to reach large audiences, the Vice President maintains active accounts on various platforms informing his followers of his daily national duties. This then means that we can seize the opportunity to analyse what he says in these speeches.

As the discourse is led by the government, it assumes prominence and makes it salient by consistently reiterating to the population the benefit of data and its related digital infrastructure as the key to national development. The paper labels this discourse as a discursive regime arising from optimism in technology. The goal is to influence the discourse to gain public support for pervasive data use and the building of digital infrastructure in the country. The idea of a discursive regime helps construct the paper's theoretical framework to examine the existing discourse on data and digitalisation in the Global North (Kitchin, 2014a; Kitchin, 2014b). This helps to gain more insight into the framing of the discourse on data and digital infrastructure in Ghana.

The paper is presented in four parts. The introduction is followed by the theoretical framework needed to analyse the literature and the data collected to answer the research question. This is then followed by the methodology section before data presentation and analysis. The conclusion summarises the findings and final remarks of the author.

Thinking about data in a hegemonic context

This section of the paper presents the main idea and overview of existing works on hegemonic discourses on data, laying the foundation for the analytical framework when the data are later presented. The main idea in this theoretical framework comes from the French philosopher and historian of ideas Michel Foucault that social discourse produces social knowledge and ‘truth’, and thus these are not given in nature, but produced and maintained by power structures of society, labelling it as regimes of truth (Foucault, 1971). It is important to point out at this early stage that the regimes of truth or what the paper prefers to call discursive regime following the work of the Irish geographer and academic Rob Kitchin on data and society, should be understood in the context of power relations in society, especially how issues are framed to gain public acceptance by the elite of a particular society. Primarily, it revolves around who has the power to speak and the audience to listen. The paper takes part of the idea of Foucault on regimes of truth to apply to the current discourse on data and digital infrastructure in society, but not by attempting to discuss regimes of truth at length in a sociological context.

Speaking at the Collège de France titled Orders of Discourse Foucault (1971) states:

In every society, the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised, and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality. (p. 9)

Our point of interest in this argument is Foucault's explicit claim that the production of discourse in society is controlled, selected, organised and redistributed. It is important to keep in mind discourses in society do not occur in a vacuum. This suggests there are some sort of entities (individuals, organisations and institutions) behind the production of such discourses. The questions are by what means/tools do they do it? What mechanisms are discourses controlled, selected, organised and redistributed? The paper contends that one of the mechanisms is the use of words to position discourses. Explaining the contribution of framing to the social construction of reality, Snow et al. (2019) argue that framing “functions as articulation mechanisms in the sense of tying together the various punctuated elements of the scene so that one coherent set of meanings rather than another is conveyed” (p.393). Framing then becomes the act of choosing some words over others to construct a desired meaning. Just like the frame of a window allows one to see outside based on the construction of the dimensions, selecting some words in a discourse allows receivers to construct meanings as the form of the words permits.

Using the adoption of technology in society as an example, Van Dijk (1996) asserts that some individuals, organisations and institutions, by virtue of the power they wield in society, can shape the public discourse for public acceptance. Cheney et al. (2004) add that such discourses are aimed at working “to influence beliefs and general assumptions held by the public” (p. 89). When the discourses are made salient, they then “play a central role in the hegemonic production and reproduction of perspectives on new technologies in our culture” (Stein, 2002, p. 173).

Van Dijk's use of technological adoption as an example of how elite of a society influences public discourse leads us to the idea of techno-optimism—“the belief that technology will produce more good than bad” (Thomson, 2022; para. 1). Danaher (2022) goes further to give a complex definition “techno-optimism is not one specific view; it is, rather, a cluster of related views that vary along a number of dimensions. Techno-optimistic views vary with respect to the degree of optimism” (p. 54). Techno-optimism then means the extent of our confidence in how good technology would be for society. But mostly in techno-optimism, the idea that technology is capable of producing bad things is treated as ‘unintended consequences’, meaning it is not designed to produce such bad effects (Alexander and Rutherford, 2019). Technology of course has benefits. That is why we spend time and resources inventing it in the first place. The key argument I make here is that techno-optimism tends to go to market with the positive side of technology while neglecting the negative. The invention of technology is mostly a top-down endeavour with elite control (Postman, 1993; MacKenzie and Wajcman, 1999; Mumford, 2010). The conventional discourse as Van Dijk points out is shaped by the elite in society, but it is obfuscated and made to appear as what society desires. This phenomenon is what Gramsci (2011) analysed in his prison notebooks as cultural hegemony in which the ruling class of a particular society imposes its worldview over the people to standardise thought to its advantage, while pretending it is natural and unavoidable, and thus should not be questioned. This means the optimism in technology is mostly the belief of the elite, which is then propagated as what society believes. So if we extrapolate Foucault's regime of truth to a specific issue like belief in technology, the belief in technology becomes the truth for society. We would illustrate this with concrete examples of data and digitalisation.

Examining the existing discourse on data and digitalisation in the Global North, Kitchin (2014b) develops Foucault's regime of truth further as a discursive regime. He argues it is:

a set of interlocking discourses that justifies and sustains new developments and naturalises and reproduces their use. A discursive regime provides the rationale for adopting new ideas and technologies and legitimates their development and implementation. (p. 152)

Kitchin contends that in a discursive regime, a discourse is framed to legitimise itself to seek authority from the people it is targeted. Bakhtin (1981) describes such authority as “the authoritativeness of tradition, of generally acknowledge truths of the official line”(p. 344). This authority becomes the new unchallenged power in the discourse operating subtle and difficult to detect.

What to keep in mind here is that the current deluge of data together with its discourse is not happening in a vacuum. It is led by those with power and influence in society. This resonates with the assumption that those with power and influence in society are easily heard. Thus power relation is central to understanding how discourse becomes hegemonic. But now that we know the discourse on data in society is driven by powerful actors, it is important to examine the direction and nature of this discourse.

According to Kitchin, the current discourse on data “is being targeted at all sectors—social, political, economic, environmental; its promise is to offer a radically new way of understanding and managing all aspects of human life” (ibid: p. 153). Using data to radically understand and manage all aspects of human life is a crucial point to elaborate on. It might help us to understand the basic nature of the discourse on data in society. But before we undertake this task, let us deal with the direction of the discourse first. In what direction are these actors pushing the discourse on data?

The argument being presented is narrow and selective and deliberately avoids highlighting potential negative consequences with respect to civil liberties, dataveillance, social sorting, data security, control creep, anticipatory governance, technocratic and corporate governance, and technological lock-ins. It is the view of vested interests, particularly those seeking to sell big data technologies, and of governments pursuing a neoliberal vision of governance and regulation oversight. (ibid: p. 165)

So the point to underscore here is that the discourse is biased. It favours those seeking to make a fortune out of technology. They thus frame data as the technology that would change society for the better. The discourse however deliberately ignores the problems and challenges that come with the technology. This is not just techno-optimism. There is an economic motivation for the promotion of big data technologies to the public as Kitchin articulates. The evidence shows data and its related technologies are traded as commodities (West, 2019; Beer, 2018). For example, the Valuation of giant technology corporations including Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple among others is linked to user data (Jurcys, 2019). These platforms thrive on consumer data by generating valuable information for advertisers to take advantage of the blindside of many users (Zuboff, 2019). As Toonders (2014) argues “Data in the 21st century is like oil in the 18th century: an immensely, untapped valuable asset. Like oil, for those who see Data's fundamental value and learn to extract and use it, there will be huge rewards” (para. 1). But curiously, the business side of big data is completely missing from the dominant hegemonic discourse. They only appear in alternative views or grassroots organisations or better still in the humanistic knowledge-producing circles in academia like Critical Data Studies (CDS). Andrejevic (2014) propounds the idea of a ‘big data divide’ “to describe the asymmetric relationship between those who collect, store, and mine large quantities of data, and those whom data collection targets’’, further revealing the main difference in the split “highlights differential access to ways of thinking about and using data that potentially exacerbate power imbalances in the digital era” (p. 1673). CDS then serves as a counter to the hegemonic discourse on data and its technologies in society (Boyd and Crawford, 2012; Dalton et al., 2016; Iliadis and Russo, 2016). So Kitchin nails it rightly by contending that the discourse on data is led by vested interests seeking to profit.

Now let us return to the task of examining the basic nature of the discourse. It is what the paper labels as data positivism (Fuchs, 2017; Jones, 2018). The word ‘positivism’ is taken from the empiricist pro-science philosophical idea of the French philosopher Auguste Comte that knowledge is genuine in so far as it is only derived from logical reasoning by sensory or physical experience or put simply, through the scientific method, thereby rendering other ways of knowing like spiritual-theology, metaphysics and intuition obsolete (Comte, 1865; Wright, 1986). Rendering other ways of knowing obsolete is important to keep in mind. It would come up again at the end of this section. For as Comte argues in favour of the scientific method here, the scientific method would produce something that would threaten the same scientific method.

Data positivism develops from the idea that science is always in motion or, to better put it, its paradigm shifts, and that the ideas contained in each epoch should be the guide for society. In his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn wrote “Successive transition from one paradigm to another via revolution is the usual developmental pattern of mature science” (Kuhn, 1970; p. 12). So Kuhn asserts that science is not really mature until it can move from one thinking to the other.

Hey et al. (2009) then theorise that beginning from the pre-renaissance era till today, there have been four paradigms in science. First is experimental science which happened in pre-Renaissance, second is theoretical science in the pre-computer era, third is computational science in the pre-big data era, and the fourth is exploratory science which is data-intensive statistical exploration and data mining. So the current paradigm of science is the fourth, and it is where we locate the basic nature of the discourse on data in society today. The basic nature is an abstract thought.

Brooks (2013) describes the fourth paradigm as ‘data-ism’, arguing that the core philosophy is “everything that can be measured should be measured… data is a transparent and reliable lens that allows us to filter out emotionalism and ideology; that data will help us do remarkable things – like foretell the future” (para. 1). Kitchin (2014b) adds to this that data-ism is “the attempt to capture everything as data and to extract some level of insight from them” (p. 171). Attempting to capture everything as data are not limited to what is happening on this planet. It is an interplanetary or universal vision posited by the advocates, as Harari (2017) surmises “dataism declares that the universe consists of data flows, and the value of any phenomenon or entity is determined by its contribution to data processing”, adding that “we may interpret the entire human species as a single data processing system, with individual humans serving as its chips” (p. 428).

The former editor-in-chief of the American pro-technology magazine Wired Chris Anderson confirms dataism by claiming the era of big data means ‘the end of theory’, and that “the data deluge makes the scientific method obsolete” (Anderson, 2008, para. 1). Anderson is not even arguing against the natural sciences alone, he questions all methods of social inquiry:

This is a world where massive amounts of data and applied mathematics replace every other tool that might be brought to bear. Out with every theory of human Behaviour, from linguistics to sociology. Forget taxonomy, ontology, and psychology. Who knows why people do what they do? The point is they do it, and we can track and measure it with unprecedented fidelity. With enough data, the numbers speak for themselves. (ibid, para. 8)

Thus data positivism is not only about predicting and revealing the unknown, but also the new paradigm from science that is threatening the scientific method that produced it. Data positivism in its current state is an abstract epistemological contention by which advocates hope to completely revolutionise society's way of knowing (Kitchin, 2014a; Iliadis and Russo, 2016). Just like Comte's pro-science philosophy challenged other means of understanding society, so is this new paradigm of science challenging all ways of knowing, even including previous paradigms of science. But as it gains traction in society among society's elite who mostly control the discourse, the prediction is that it would become the new regime of truth in Foucault's terminology. So the optimism in data, as we would soon see from the empirical evidence in the case of Ghana, would define how we organise ourselves and even our interaction with the external environment in the future. In the interim, we should treat the regime of truth about data as our ‘saviour’ as abstract thought. But the significance is that it is the new regime of truth, and it dominates the political economy of today's society of information and communications technologies.

Methodology

This section explains the techniques, methods and procedures the paper employed to identify, select, process and analyse data on the ongoing discourse on data and digital infrastructure in Ghana. As pointed out in the introduction, the discourse is led by the government, a powerful actor of the state, necessitating that we conceptualise or think about the subject in terms of the dominant framing of discourse. This is why the thinking of Foucault that truth is not given in nature but produced and maintained by power structures of society is essential. Kitchin's discursive regime opens the gate for a more in-depth review of existing literature on discourse on data in society.

The paper selects Ghana for this inquiry because the country is a fertile ground for the flourishing of data and its related digital infrastructure. It has enjoyed relatively to other nations in sub-Saharan Africa social and political stability since it returned to the ballot box in 1992. More importantly, Ghana is currently building its digital infrastructure to increase data flow, and the government is rallying public support. For example, the World Bank has even allocated an amount of $200 million to support the implementation of the GDAP. What these developments mean is that Ghana is the ideal place to examine how it is handling a discourse on a technology that is in its infancy in the country.

On data collection and selection of the main research character, the paper focuses on the public speeches made by the Vice President of Ghana, Mahamudu Bawumia on data and digital infrastructure. Why Bawumia? First, he is the lead character in digitalising the country. Second, he has delegated authority from the president to implement the policy, so he speaks for the government and the nation as a whole. This institutional authority is what Mayr (2008) describes “Institutions are shaped by discourse and how they in turn have the capacity to create and impose discourses. In this way, they have considerable control over the shaping of our routine experiences of the world and the way we classify that world”(p. 1).

Third, as a leader of the digital project, Bawumia has been vocal to the extent even his political opponents accuse him of using “digitalisation of the economy as a launch of his presidential bid and an attempt to market himself to Ghanaians” (starrfm, 2021, para. 1). All these combined, the paper posits there is no appropriate person to focus than Bawumia on the subject of inquiry.

Relying on public posts of Bawumia's verified Facebook page, the paper collects data between January 2022 and December 2022. The Vice-President started his digital Ghana project when his government took office in 2017. However, this period was chosen because Bawumia intensified his activities through public events on the need to digitalise the country. I already mentioned the World Bank money of $200 million to support the GDAP. The money was given to the country in May 2022. This shows that January 2022 and December 2022 are crucial as it is the period the country was able to attract external funding for the project.

A total of 32 posts were analysed. 19 of them are written directly on Facebook with images taken directly from the events. The other 13 are published on the government website www.presidency.gov.gh and the hyperlink shared on his Facebook page. The images are uploaded on the website, but when the hyperlinks are shared on Facebook, the images appear on the frame so when the links are clicked, they take the user to the website. Scanning through the Facebook posts for audience insight, each post garners an average of 3000 likes and over 1000 comments. The majority of the comments are positive. Those commenting mostly congratulate Mr Bawumia for spearheading the government's digital transformation agenda, for example, on May 5, 2022 post on his speech as the guest speaker at the 2022 edition of the Annual Conference of the Institute of Internal Auditors which he spoke about the importance of digitalisation and had over 3600 likes, 235 comments and 836 shares. One user named Refat Husein Gunu writes “We are in the digital world. Thank you Dr Mahamudu Bawumia for ensuring Ghana is a case study in the digital space for many countries”. These analytics show that the discourse Bawumia is leading on the importance of data, and the building of digital infrastructure for the country is resonating with the public. Bawumia has other social media pages like Twitter and Instagram, but a glance revealed that he is more active on Facebook than the rest. So relying on his Facebook posts is more likely to capture the majority of his public statements on the subject. The paper recognises that they could be exclusions as some of his posts on the subject might not have been posted on Facebook. This is an unavoidable limitation. The data collection process worked by using the filter on his Facebook page to select the mentioned period. The rest of the work was scrolling down and copying the posts he had made on the subject of inquiry. It has to be pointed out that all his posts on data and digital infrastructure were copied between the selected times. Sometimes, the posts are not written directly on Facebook, but are posted on Presidency.gov.gh, the official website for the Presidency of Ghana, and the links are shared back on his Facebook page. The paper relied on the thematic analysis to analyse the data collected on Facebook. One of the greatest advantages of thematic analysis is its ability to reveal patterns by reading through the data collected in what Aronson (1995) contends “ideas emerge that can be better understood under the control of a thematic analysis”, and that “this can come from direct quotes or paraphrasing common ideas”(p. 2). As the data copied on Facebook are speeches, the paper classified them as direct quotes from Bawumia. Another advantage of using thematic analysis is how the speeches centred on the development of Ghana in three areas—fighting corruption, smooth and efficient governance and economic development. This makes them fit for thematic analysis.

Data and digital infrastructure: Bedrock for national development

This section deals with the data collected. Presentation and analysis have been merged to make the text dense, and most importantly, to bring clarity and make it easy to keep track. The paper identifies an overreaching claim by Bawumia that data and digital infrastructure are prerequisites for national development. He is galvanising support for the implementation of the digital project because it is the bedrock for national development, in line with the reason the people voted for the government. This underscores the country's optimism in this information technology. But how are data and digital infrastructure going to develop Ghana? The problem we encounter trying to answer this question is the meaning of the term ‘development’. It is a broad term, with many value judgements and thus contested (Esteva, 2010). The United Nations recognises this problem and states in the first paragraph of the Agenda for Development “Development is a multidimensional undertaking to achieve a higher quality of life for all people”, then homing in to add “economic development, social development, and environmental protection are interdependent and mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development” (United Nations, 1997; p. 1). Consequently, to understand how data and digital infrastructure are going to develop Ghana, we have to find these specifics. Before even the current drive of digitalisation was initiated, the Ghanaian government had listed economic, social, environmental, infrastructure and human settlement, governance, corruption and public accountability as priority areas of development in which the country should make progress by 2024 (Zakari, 2019). So we see some correlation of Ghana's development priorities with that of the United Nations. It is then not surprising that reading through Bawumia's speeches, we find three main themes—fighting corruption, smooth and efficient governance and economic development as what data and digital infrastructure would present as development for Ghana. Both fighting corruption and efficient governance are part of social development. This means that the themes fit into the definition of development by the United Nations and Ghana.

Fighting corruption

This theme was identified by the word ‘corruption’ appearing explicitly in Bawumia's speech. This is the clearest and easily identifiable among the themes. He contends that corruption is a national canker that stifles national development, and so migrating onto the digital realm through data and digital infrastructure would ensure transparency.

The key to fighting corruption was to enhance transparency in our governance. This is why our government has since 2017 ensured the deployment of technology and digitalisation with the twin aim of ensuring easier, affordable access, and as an anti-corruption strategy. The government is very committed to the fight against corruption and will continue to infuse digitalization into the operations of state institutions to ensure more transparency. (Bawumia; Facebook post May 5, 2022)

Lack of transparency in any state, institution or organisation breeds corruption. This is indeed true. He frames digitalisation as an anti-corruption tool by highlighting the existing problem, and quickly explaining what the government has done with digital technology to solve the problem. This is then followed by an iteration of the government's commitment, promising to inject more digitalisation into public institutions to ensure transparency. Iteration is key here. Stein (2002) mentions saliency as a method for producing and reproducing hegemonic discourse. One key strategy for creating saliency is repetition. The exposure of the same message over some time tends to play into the minds of receivers even if they are unaware. We see more of the same strategy below:

Corruption inhibits economic growth and affects business operations, employment, and investments. It also reduces tax revenue and the effectiveness of various financial assistance programs. The wider society is influenced by a high degree of corruption in terms of lowering trust in the rule of law, governance, and consequently the quality of life (para.3). Corruption thrives in the very nature of the society that we have. People who are supposed to collect revenues for the government steal from the government when cash is paid. People do not file their taxes. People try to register minors to vote and there's general indiscipline in this type of system; because it is full of darkness there is no transparency and therefore corruption thrives (Para.6). Through digitalization we are putting in place the systems for a disciplined, less corrupt, transparent, efficient, trustworthy and tax complying society. Let us all join this very important, national fight. (Para. 14) (Bawumia; presidency.gov August, 24 2022)

By first highlighting the consequences of corruption, he reminds the public about intolerable activities that derail the progress of the country. The concluding part is a call to action through the use of digitalisation. The articulation mechanism here functions as first reminding the people of the problem and following up with the solution. By doing this, digitalisation as the cure to the problem gets conveyed as a coherent message (Snow et al., 2019). Once the message—digitalisation is an anti-corruption tool becomes coherent, there is a high possibility for people to think only about the benefits of the technology. If digitalisation is an anti-corruption tool who would argue against its implementation? This is the premise Kitchin (2014b) argues that the discourse on data is carefully selected to present only the benefits. Of course, there is evidence to show digitalisation has benefits. Bawumia sheds light on how technology is restoring integrity in public finance:

The infusion of digital technology in the operations of the National Service Scheme has saved Ghana at least 112 million Ghana Cedis and blocked payments to undeserving persons. The app, which combines facial recognition technology and Ghanacard checks for Verification and Validation and has so far blocked the enrolment of 14,027 potential fraudsters onto the Scheme, saving the nation a colossal amount of money. (Bawumia, Facebook post, February 1, 2022)

For perspective, 112 million Ghana Cedis in February 2022 by exchange rate was approximately U.S. $18 million. Digital technology through facial verification saved Ghana this amount per his claim. According to the Ghana Statistical Service, Ghana lost the equivalent of U.S. $840 million in 2021 through bribes in both public and private sectors of the economy (GhanaWeb, 2022; Myjoyonline, 2022). This of course prevents the government from raising revenue to finance its increasing public expenditure. If digital technology can check this corrupt practice, it would mean a boost in the government's revenue generation which positively impacts the economy. The discourse is rallying people to accept digitalisation by putting the frame of the discourse at an angle where people see and think only about the benefits of the technology (Kitchin, 2014b). But, for example, there are issues like data privacy and security, and especially with a sensitive thing like biodata, what if this data gets into the hands of malevolent or bad actors? Data are a valuable resource (Toonders, 2014), so bad actors would actively seek for it. Ignoring these problems means the government gains full control of the discourse on the basis that the technology solves a serious problem. The procedure of producing the discourse this way not only ensures it becomes the ‘truth' (Foucault, 1971), but we also begin to see the traction of tecno-optimism gaining momentum.

Ensuring smooth and efficient governance

A datafied Ghana helps the state to govern well. From the availability of immense data, the country can predict future events through statistical modelling and intensive data mining techniques (Hey et al., 2009). This takes us to the heart of data positivism. Whereas governing through data is not a new phenomenon, as census existed in ancient times (Mayer-Schonberger and Cukier, 2013), the current rise and pervasive use of digital data is the basis for Anderson's (2008) entrenched position on data positivism, arguing in favour of data to render the scientific method obsolete, just like Comte (1865) positivism contention did to previous ways of knowing like intuition or theology. It is helpful to emphasise here again that data positivism is an abstract contention in the Global North. But in Ghana, data positivism is presented as concrete that should function in the real world. Ghana is feeding on the abstract thought of the discourse in the Global North but treating it as concrete. In Marxist philosophy, this phenomenon is known as reification—treating an abstract thought as concrete. The country genuinely believes in the power of data to transform society so the expectation is that everything in the country that can be turned into information should be turned into so it could be measured (Brooks, 2013). This would then be useful in making crucial decisions to steer the affairs of the country.

I was the guest speaker at the 18th Plenary of the Group of Earth Observations (GEO) Week. I lauded the contributions made by the GEO through the provision of critical data that continues to inform policy formulation, programme design, and implementation in Ghana. I also reiterated that data had become increasingly important for decision-making, and Government's targeted programmes such as poverty reduction drives and the fight against illegal mining were based in part on such information. (Bawumia, Facebook post, November 2, 2022)

We already pointed out the power of iteration. Bawumia even says he repeated to the GEO panel that the implementation of the government's flagship programs is informed by data. So the rationale for relying on data (Kitchin, 2014b) is that it is critical for the implementation of government policies and programs. As Bawumia further puts it, “We are already seeing the impact of these digitisation initiatives including efficient public service delivery by all ministries, departments, and agencies on the Ghana.gov portal” (Bawumia; presidency.gov, October 26, 2022: para; 11). How data are capable of informing the government's policy to reduce an elusive and contested concept like poverty is unclear in the discourse, but we can speculate from Harari's (2017) assertion on dataism that everything consists of data flows and can be processed and measured. So in fact, what is happening here is Ghana attempting to measure everything according to its capacity to produce data and using it to govern.

I was in Tamale to launch a new comprehensive online self-enrollment portal, “MyNHIS app”, designed to make registration onto and renewal of existing membership of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which is an addition to the several digital platforms introduced into the health sector, includes several user-friendly features such as enabling persons desirous of enrolling with the NHIS to do so in the comfort of their homes using their mobile phones. [It] allows NHIS members to securely pay registration and membership renewal fees from their mobile money wallets, bank, and Visa accounts. (Bawumia, Facebook post, December 5, 2022)

MyNHIS app is beneficial to the general public as health insurance is something majority of the people would like to subscribe to. The app is user-friendly and secures all data transactions. This is the reason why the public should embrace the technology. As pointed out previously, what is present to the public are the benefits. Data protection and security issues are missing, but the common-sense interpretation would be that the government has taken care of that so people should not worry. This reasoning is inaccurate, at least drawing on the evidence of what is happening regarding privacy and surveillance in the Global North (Verble, 2014; Beer, 2018; West, 2019; Zuboff, 2019). But for a techno-optimist, this is not a problem to think about in direct relation to the technology. The problem should be treated in isolation as the ‘unintended consequences’, that possibly would need further application of technology to be solved (Alexander and Rutherford, 2019). So a techno-optimist canvasses for the positive impact of technology on society. However, this optimism can lead to abstraction. Especially when the technology is exported from the Global North to the Global South, there could be misunderstanding on some crucial ideas.

Economic development

Enthusiastic about improving the economic situation, Bawumia reiterates the need to rely on data and digital infrastructure. Particularly on building the infrastructure, the government considers it as an investment with the hope that it would soon earn monetary reward from the project. The underlying logic is that the technology is shaping and improving the economic fortunes of countries in the Global North, hence Ghana needs to tap into the opportunity. Indeed, there is evidence to prove digitalisation has a positive impact on economic growth. For example, a study comparing the economies of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that “digitalization has a positive contribution to economic growth” (Myovella et al., 2020; p. 1).

You've seen mobile money interoperability; you've seen the national ID card; you've seen digital addresses, you've seen the paperless ports, universal QR code, Ghana pay, and so on. All of this is laying a particular foundation in this country that will allow us to fully participate in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. (Bawumia; presidency.gov October, 26 2022: para; 6)

The use of the term ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ in eulogising the benefits of digitalisation sheds some light on the direction of the discourse. Simply known as 4IR or Industry 4.0, it developed from the thinking of Klaus Schwab, founder, and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum that “the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century [is] characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres” (Schwab, 2016, para. 2). This conceptual thought “has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world” (ibid: para. 4). But in Ghana, Bawumia believes “the global economic environment is transitioning into the Fourth Industrial Revolution where the digital economy is taking centre stage” (Bawumia; Facebook Post October 26, 2022). By comparing the thought of Schwab and that of Bawumia, something interesting emerges. While the latter is projecting into the future to have a glimpse, the former is treating it as something happening now which Ghana should tap into instantly for economic development. This means Bawumia's confidence in what digital technology can do is high. Not only is Bawumia reifying the thought of Schwab, but he literally believes digitalisation holds the key to unlocking Ghana's economic potential. This means the conversation about digitalisation is a national priority with a powerful state actor as a proponent. The critical aspect of the conversation like dangers and challenges is deliberately avoided as Foucault (1971) asserted in The Orders of Discourse leads to entrenching a particular viewpoint in society. But framing the discourse by projecting the positive means telling a one-sided story. What does it mean for the country then? Apart from obscuring privacy and surveillance issues, it also means for example an important issue like who benefits economically from the technology and its likelihood of widening the economic gap of the country is missing in the discourse. Even if 4IR becomes a reality today, from what we have seen already, vested interests dominate the current digital economy whose primary focus is to seize on the opportunity of the enormous digital data that are being produced to make a profit (Beer, 2018; Toonders, 2014; West, 2019; Zuboff, 2019). Furthermore, the global digital economy is dominated by a tiny elite of corporations, producing more losers than winners (Giridharadas, 2019; Yin and Choi, 2023), and even as evidence, in April 2018, Bawumia led a delegation of 15 Ghanian technology companies to Silicon Valley to encourage investment in Ghana, telling corporate executive in the valley “we as a government want to set the framework, the environment, then move out of the way so that you guys can do what you do best” (GhanaWeb, 2018, para. 7). This suggests the drive towards digitalisation is done with consideration for dominant market actors. In other words, the context in which data and digital infrastructure would contribute to economic development is for the government to create the enabling environment by building the digital infrastructure for private investment in the economy. So, the economic reward assertion helps us to address the part of the question of what this framing of the technology means for the country. It is a question of problems and challenges this new technology would bring along the benefit. They should not be treated in isolation but should be part of a coherent policy that addresses these before the technology gains full momentum in the country.

I joined colleague Board Members of the United Nation's Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (GPSDD) to discuss issues of data and digitalization and how the synergies between the two can be harnessed for national [economic]developments. Of particular consideration in our deliberations were the trends in the data landscape that present the greatest threats and opportunities for the Global Partnerships work over the next five years. (Bawumia; Facebook Post September 14, 2022)

This is the first time in the discourse so far that Bawumia is admitting that data and digitalisation present threats along with opportunities. What is interesting about this is that the event to think about the threats of digitalisation is not even an initiative of the government of Ghana, but the United Nations. Furthermore, the focus of the event was not to think about the threats per se but to envisage how the combination of data and digital infrastructure would lead to development. Thus the conversation is still in line with the legitimate generally acknowledged reasoning (Bakhtin, 1981) as in the acceleration of the technology to benefit everyone in society. It is good to be optimistic about technology, but at the same time, we should be mindful that technology is not a neutral tool (Zhao et al., 2004). Especially with data and digital infrastructure, they are a ‘socio-technical assemblage’ made up of ‘technical, economic and social construct’ (Deborah Lupton, cited in Kitchin, 2014b; p. 5) that require society to think about opportunities and threats in symmetry. As it stands now in Ghana, it is fair to say the discourse is one-sided; the one that is “narrow, selective and deliberately avoids highlighting potential negative consequences” (ibid; p.165).

Conclusion and final thought

So far, the paper has been looking at how Ghana is framing data and digital infrastructure to gain public acceptance and its consequences. Starting with Foucault's idea of regimes of truth on how discourse in society is produced and maintained, the paper worked to establish that the dominant discourse in society is produced by its elite. Drawing on Kitchin's (2014b) idea of a discursive regime, also developed from regimes of truth by Foucault (1971), the paper used the existing discourse on data and digital infrastructure in the Global North as a theoretical framework to understand the ongoing discourse on the technology in a Global South country Ghana. The discourse on data as Kitchin reveals is dominated by powerful actors with vested interests in society who present the technology as yielding benefits to society, deliberately ignoring the problems it creates as it becomes pervasive. However, to further understand the basic nature of the discourse, the paper developed the discursive regime on data into data positivism. Positivism taken from the empiricist pro-science philosophical idea of Comte (1865) that knowledge is genuine in so far as it is only derived from logical reasoning by sensory or physical experience. Thus, the paper argued that data positivism also develops from the idea that science is always in motion (Kuhn, 1970) and that its current fourth paradigm is data-intensive statistical exploration and data mining, ingraining the philosophy of dataism or data positivism as the new way of knowing. Data positivism hence is an abstract epistemological contention in which it advocates hope to completely revolutionise society's way of knowing.

To understand how discourse on data and its related digital infrastructure are framed by dominant state actors for public acceptance and its likely consequences, the paper examined the public speeches on Facebook of a powerful figure in the country, Vice President Bawumia. To sum up the discourse, Bawumia makes the overreaching claim that data and digital infrastructure are prerequisites for Ghana's development. Detailing this general claim, the paper defined the term ‘development’ by using thematic analysis to find fitting categories that claimed to use data and digital infrastructure as the technology for fighting corruption, ensuring smooth and efficient governance, and promoting economic development. The discourse is hegemonic and resonates with the public. For example, the posts on Facebook have received positive responses. Bawumia's digitalisation initiative has also been widely acknowledged (Asaaseradio, 2022; Ghanabusiness, 2022). As a vice president, he wields enormous power and influence, and so public trust in the context of the government knows what is best for the country drives positive response especially when the discourse is framed as data and digital infrastructure are the technology that would transform the country. The key then to making the discourse hegemonic is the position of the actor involved, and how the discourse is carefully selected to expose the public to only the benefits of the technology while ignoring the potential risks. So, we have an asymmetry of information in the public domain which has the potential of opening up areas for further inquiries which I will soon highlight.

The crucial contribution this paper makes to filling the knowledge gap can answer the research question from the empirical evidence on the general contention of Ghana that data and its digital infrastructure are prerequisites for national development. This optimism is borne out of the abstract contention of data positivism in the Global North which Ghana has reified by taking the abstract thought as concrete to mean the new way of knowing would lead the country to the path of ‘salvation’. Put differently, it is through this new technology that we can achieve the long-sought-after development.

The paper opens up areas for further inquiries. Now that we know data and digital infrastructure are perceived as the key to unlocking national development in Ghana, we can exclusively investigate the likelihood of the problems and threats. For example, we can focus on the possibility of this warm reception of data and digital infrastructure in the country to open up datafication in the country. Furthermore, we can investigate the level of critical reflections on the problems and challenges digitalisation is likely to pose to the country, and how grassroots organisations are pushing back, if any at all. So this study sets the ground for more scholarly inquiries on data and digital infrastructure in Ghana.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This paper was conceived from Core course Two of the Research Practices in Media Studies from the Research Master's Media Studies program at the University of Amsterdam. The author is thankful to Prof. Dr M. (Misha) Kavka (Cross-Media Culture), Prof. Dr P.P.R.W. (Patricia) Pisters (Media and Film Studies) and Professor Stefania Milan (Critical Data Studies) who reviewed and gave feedback. The author also expresses his profound gratitude to the three anonymous reviewers whose comments have played a crucial role in the publication. Finally to the 2023 graduates of the Research Master's Media Studies of the University of Amsterdam for their support.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Adams Issaka

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