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Overview of Galamsey and Environmental Destruction in Ghana
Multimodal and Networked Rhetoric as Drivers of Participation in Digital Environmental Activism
Analysis: Multimodal Strategies and Social Media Amplification
Example 1: The Polluted River Bodies–A Multimodal Call to Action
Cultural Authority and Moral Legitimacy: The Asantehene’s Intervention
Multimodal and Networked Rhetoric as Drivers of Participation in Digital Environmental Activism
Multimodal refers to communication that combines multiple modes such as images, written language, sound, video, and spatial arrangement to produce meaning and persuasion, particularly in digital contexts where these modes operate together (Kress, 2009). Also, Networked publics are digitally mediated spaces in which people gather, interact, and circulate discourse through social media platforms, with participation shaped by visibility, connectivity, and technological affordances that influence how ideas and emotions spread (Papacharissi, 2015). Moreover, rhetorical ecologies describe the interconnected environments of texts, images, emotions, actors, and media through which rhetoric circulates and gains influence over time, emphasizing that meaning emerges through interaction rather than isolated messages (Edbauer, 2005).
Ghana's environmental crisis, intensified by illegal mining, poses serious threats to ecosystems, water security, and community livelihoods, prompting grassroots resistance across digital spaces. Activists increasingly rely on multimodal content circulated through networked platforms to engage local and global audiences in environmental advocacy. While digital rhetoric scholarship has closely examined Western movements such as Black Lives Matter, it has given comparatively little attention to how Global South communities adapt digital strategies to confront environmental exploitation. This gap limits understanding of decolonial digital practices and reinforces Western-centric assumptions about how digital activism operates.
This study positions multimodal rhetoric as the foundational framework for analyzing how the StopGalamseyNow campaign mobilizes civic participation through the strategic integration of text, visuals, video, and sound. Drawing on rhetorical ecologies, multimodal texts are understood as circulating within dynamic networks where meaning emerges through uptake, reuse, and redistribution rather than isolated artifacts (Edbauer, 2005). From a social semiotic perspective, these modes function as resources that shape interpretation and persuasion across contexts (Kress, 2009). Images of polluted rivers, infographics on water contamination, and video testimonies provide the semiotic material that enables participation as users remix and recirculate content to align with local narratives.
Networked platforms further extend this process by amplifying circulation and visibility through algorithmic distribution, allowing individual expressions to scale into collective action (Ehrenfeld, 2020). In this way, multimodal rhetoric operates as the compositional engine of the campaign, while networked circulation enables participation, visibility, and sustained civic engagement.