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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
Analysis: Multimodal Strategies and Social Media Amplification
The StopGalamseyNow campaign relies on multimodal rhetorical strategies to make the consequences of illegal small-scale mining visible and urgent. Activists circulate images and videos of polluted rivers, devastated landscapes, and affected communities across social media platforms, often paired with brief textual narratives or personal testimonies. This combination of visual and textual modes transforms environmental harm from abstract information into lived experience, encouraging emotional engagement and moral response. By enabling audiences to simultaneously see and interpret environmental destruction, these multimodal compositions heighten persuasive force and public involvement, reflecting the effectiveness of multimodal communication in shaping perception and engagement (Kjeldsen & Hess, 2021).
Amplification through social media further sustains participation. The hashtag StopGalamseyNow functions as a central organizing mechanism that links dispersed users into a shared networked public. When the hashtag trended on X in September 2024, it facilitated rapid circulation, real-time updates, and coordination among activists and supporters. This visibility encouraged users to contribute content, remix existing posts, and engage in public discourse, shifting audiences from spectators to participants. Such networked interaction exemplifies contemporary digital activism, where collective action emerges through circulation, attention, and shared engagement rather than centralized leadership (Tufekci, 2013).