Visual framing of environmental sustainability analysis of video coverage of illegal mining in Ghana o

Abstract

The content including documents published on social media, could influence individuals’ attitudes and actions toward environmental issues, such as galamsey. Given this, media outlets have key role in the fight against illegal mining activities especially in Ghana. With the widespread use of social media, these media outlets have also utilised social media platforms including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, among others in their efforts and campaigns to address environmental sustainability concerns. Despite this, there is notable inadequacy in media coverage of environmental issues, particularly regarding visual representations on platforms like YouTube. This study aims to bridge this gap by examining how environmental concerns, specifically illegal mining, are depicted on YouTube in Ghana, considering the country's substantial role as the primary gold producer in sub-Saharan Africa, entwined in global environmental discussions. This study analyses the videos and images published on a popular social media platform (YouTube) by two selected media outlets in Ghana focusing particularly on how their documents about illegal mining were visually framed during the fight against galamsey from 2017 and 2018. Underpinned by the visual framing and environmental citizenship theories, this study explores the way the issue of galamsey was conveyed by Citi News and Joy News were similar, even though they used different but related hashtags, keywords and captions to make meaning and disseminate messages about the menace to the public. The study found that the visual framing of the information about illegal mining influenced users to act as environmental citizens and tone of their comments to show support for the fight. Videos that showed various activities in galamsey could more likely provoke negative comments and testimonies from users. This study calls for improvement in the report and visual presentation of illegal mining activities online especially YouTube by the media outlets. However, there is the need for regulations to address issues regarding the spread of misinformed and disinformed videos which could magnify conflicts, tension and insecurity in mining communities.