Trust as the Missing Link: Political Communication and Voter behaviour in Ghana

<title>Abstract</title> <p>This study examined how political communication, campaign messaging, media framing, and digital engagement shape voter perception, trust, and voter behaviour in Ghana. Grounded in Agenda-Setting Theory, it explores how political actors prioritize issues and influence voter decision-making within an evolving media landscape. A quantitative survey design was used, with data collected from 200 respondents through a structured online questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression. The results show that political communication has a statistically significant but moderate effect on voter perception and electoral behaviour. Campaign messaging, media framing, and digital communication all demonstrate positive relationships with voter behaviour. Voter trust emerged as the strongest predictor of voting behaviour (β = 0.34, p &lt; 0.001), indicating that the effectiveness of communication strategies largely depends on perceived credibility. The study also highlights the dual role of digital platforms, which increase access to political information while exposing voters to misinformation. Overall, the study contributes to political communication scholarship by showing that communication effects are conditional on voter trust. It provides empirical evidence from Ghana and underscores the importance of credible, transparent, and issue-based communication in strengthening democratic participation.</p>