INTRODUCTION
Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM)Footnote 1 is considered an efficient means of alleviating poverty mainly in rural areas of developing countries (e.g. ILO 1999; African Union 2009; Hilson Reference Hilson2010, Reference Hilson2013; Hilson & Garforth Reference Hilson and Garforth2013; Van Bockstael Reference Van Bockstael2014, Reference Van Bockstael2019; Spiegel Reference Spiegel2015; Afriyie et al. Reference Afriyie, Ganle and Adomako2016; Buss et al. Reference Buss, Rutherford, Stewart, Côté, Sebina-Zziwa, Kibombo and Lebert2019; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020). In Ghana, the rapid increase in the number of operators in the 2000s has meant that one sixth of the Ghanaian population directly or indirectly depends on ASM today (Hilson Reference Hilson2016), making the sector's economic and social significance undeniable.
However, despite its recognised importance, most operators work illegally due to a costly and complicated registration process, lack of available land, and the long-standing neglect of ASM by a government that has been prioritising the development of and rent-seeking from the large-scale mining industry (LSM) (e.g. Hilson & Potter Reference Hilson and Potter2005; Teschner Reference Teschner2012; Hausermann & Ferring Reference Hausermann and Ferring2018; Ofori & Ofori Reference Ofori and Ofori2018). An informal status thereby predominates within ASM, notwithstanding the fact that formalisation is often seen as a way to maximise its development potential and to reduce the negative environmental and societal impacts associated with the sector (e.g. Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Van Bockstael Reference Van Bockstael2014; Hilson and Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2017; McQuilken & Hilson Reference McQuilken and Hilson2018; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020).
For decades, Ghanaian governments have been trying to curb the growth of illegal ASM, popularly referred to as galamsey,Footnote 2 so far without success. This failure to curb galamsey is a result of ignorance of its driving factors (unemployment, lack of welfare, administrative hurdles and/or corruption) and the deployment of unsustainable military raids to address the problem. Rather than tackling the societal causes, the Ghanaian governments have ascribed engagement in galamsey to greed and the criminal nature of the operators, while emphasising its environmental and social ills. Such an official long-term presentation has resonated both in the media and more broadly within Ghanaian society.
The media campaign #StopGalamsey may be considered to represent the apex of this government's presentation of the sector, reflecting worsening environmental degradation resulting from its uncontrolled expansion and mechanisation. This began in April 2017, when, unprecedentedly, the major Ghanaian media united in a coalition and started publishing stories depicting the impact of galamsey. So far, the question of how the image of galamsey is constructed by the media and communicated to a broader audience has been ignored in the research. An exception is a recently published article by Kpienbaareh et al. (Reference Kpienbaareh, Kansanga, Konkor and Luginaah2021) whose findings, however, manifest serious shortcomings mainly in their presentation of the media's role in the campaign and its influence on the drastic decisions the government has adopted in response to it in a positive way. In this manner Kpienbaareh et al. neglect the serious socio-economic impacts of these measures and the damaging role the media have played in their stance via encouraging and supporting them through publishing skewed stories, as this study clearly reveals.
This study endeavours to address this research gap by discerning the dominant discourses in the portrayal of galamsey by the biggest Ghanaian newspaper and one of the campaign's leading forces – the Daily Graphic, Accra (DG). The article is a qualitative content analysis of the media frames, based on a sample of 176 articles published during the first two years of the campaign (between April 2017 and 2019) in the DG,Footnote 3 and seeks to answer the research question: How was galamsey framed in the Daily Graphic during the #StopGalamsey media campaign?
The study applies political agenda-setting theory in order to discuss the influence of the media on political decision-making. The concept of media frames is then presented as products and constructs of media and journalists who tell their audience what is important to know and how to think of an issue. Specifically, the author works with Entman's (Reference Entman1993) concept. Based on a textual analysis, four main modes were discovered via which galamsey was framed – environmental menace, criminal activity, complex menace and corruption and collusion.
The study finds a highly negative and troublesome presentation of galamsey, portraying it as an environmental menace, and operators as greedy criminals. The author argues that the DG made little effort to understand and explain the complexity of the problem, just as it failed to ask important questions about miners’ motives, the driving forces behind their involvement, and the overwhelming informality that prevails in ASM as a result of its neglect by a government that keeps in place regulations that do not correspond to the reality in the sector. Such a negative image was conveyed by the choice of sources, where dissenting views were marginalised and often played down. This discourse changes only with the government initiatives introduced during the campaign, which, although still highly problematic (Hilson Reference Hilson2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020), have emerged despite the campaign, since the position of the DG consists almost exclusively in presenting galamsey as an environmental menace and criminal activity, while calling for drastic and superficial solutions.
These conclusions cast doubt on the quality of press and journalistic practice in Ghana, which prides itself as one of the freest media on the continent (Freedom House 2019). However, they fit with the findings of research on the media coverage of extractive sectors in the region (Schiffrin Reference Schiffrin2009; Behrman et al. Reference Behrman, Canonge, Purcell and Schiffrin2012), highlighting serious shortcomings in journalistic practice, inhibiting higher quality coverage of issues related to such a knowledge-demanding topic as the extractive industry.
POLITICAL AGENDA-SETTING, FRAMING THEORY AND THE CONCEPT OF MEDIA FRAMES
The fundamental question addressed by political agenda-setting research (e.g. Protess et al. Reference Protess, Cook, Curtin, Gordon, Leff, McCombs and Miller1987; Soroka Reference Soroka2002; Walgrave & Van Aelst Reference Walgrave and Van Aelst2006; Van Aelst & Walgrave Reference Van Aelst and Walgrave2011) is ‘To what extent can mass media coverage influence politicians’ priorities?’, while the main concern is the words and deeds of politicians (Van Aelst et al. Reference Van Aelst, Thesen, Walgrave, Vliegenthart, Esser and Strömbäck2014: 202). Indeed, as demonstrated by Kpienbaareh et al. (Reference Kpienbaareh, Kansanga, Konkor and Luginaah2021) in the very media campaign against galamsey, heightened journalistic attention led to a greater focus on galamsey by the government, which adopted measures that substantially affected the whole industry. Such a substantial and tangible impact can be explained by the very type of issues (environment, law and order) that are highly influential on the political agenda (Soroka Reference Soroka2002), dramatic and negative coverage (Walgrave & Van Aelst Reference Walgrave and Van Aelst2006), and by the congruence between different media outlets, further increasing their influence (Eilders Reference Eilders2000).
For the most part, the media's role in the political agenda-setting process is perceived positively (Van Aelst et al. Reference Van Aelst, Thesen, Walgrave, Vliegenthart, Esser and Strömbäck2014: 203). Indeed, Kpienbaareh et al. (Reference Kpienbaareh, Kansanga, Konkor and Luginaah2021: 12) present the media campaign in Ghana as a welcome ‘active involvement of the media in promoting sustainable resource use, environmental management and economic development’, while demonstrating that ‘with effective partnerships and collaborations, the media can be an important development partner of governments’. However, if we focus on how galamsey was framed in the first place, we may come to findings questioning these conclusions and the quality and balance of the stories published in the media. The author's content analysis of media frames rather demonstrates the failure of the media, which, through its collaboration with the government and exerting of pressure to find superficial remedies to the crisis, made the whole issue far more damaging.
The framing idea is based on the work of sociologist Erving Goffman (Reference Goffman1974), who uses the concept of frames as ‘schemata of interpretation’ that enable their users ‘to locate, perceive, identify, and label a seemingly infinite number of concrete occurrences defined in its terms’ (Goffman Reference Goffman1974: 21). Media frames were researched in a more detailed way in the following years in Gaye Tuchman's (Reference Tuchman1978) or Todd Gitlin's (Reference Gitlin1980) work, both focusing on the media coverage of social movements in the USA. Media frames in Gitlin's view ‘organise the world both for journalists who report it and, in some important degree, for us who rely on their reports. Media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis, and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organise discourse, whether verbal or visual’ (Gitlin Reference Gitlin1980: 7, italics in original). As Gitlin states, frames enable journalists to process an amount of information quickly and in a routine way, by which they are basically an inevitable part of journalistic practice (Gitlin Reference Gitlin1980).
As a result of the growing number of definitions of framing, contemporary research is characterised by theoretical and empirical vagueness and conceptual fragmentation (Scheufele Reference Scheufele1999), with no existing consensus about how to recognise frames in the news (Van Gorp Reference Van Gorp2006; Matthes & Kohring Reference Matthes and Kohring2008). This article employs the definition introduced by Entman (Reference Entman1993), whose concept of media frames allows for an applicable operationalisation. According to Entman, ‘To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described’ (Reference Entman1993: 52, italics in original). In Entman's definition, several frame elements or functions that make for a frame may be recognised – frames define problems, diagnose causes, make moral judgement and suggest remedies. These elements may be found all in one sentence, and equally frames in a single text need not necessarily contain all the listed functions. In a text, frames are manifested by the presence or absence of certain keywords, stock phrases, stereotyped images, sources of information, and sentences providing thematically reinforcing clusters of facts or judgements (Entman Reference Entman1993).
THE CONTEXT OF ARTISANAL AND SMALL-SCALE GOLD MINING IN GHANA – TRAPPED BETWEEN INFORMALITY, CORRUPTION AND FOREIGN INTERESTS
ASM is a vital livelihood for over 40 million people in developing countries, where it has become ‘the most important rural non-farming activity’ (World Bank 2019), and it therefore plays a significant role in the alleviation of poverty (e.g. ILO 1999; Banchirigah Reference Banchirigah2008; African Union 2009; Geenen Reference Geenen2012; Hilson & Garforth Reference Hilson and Garforth2012, Reference Hilson and Garforth2013; Teschner Reference Teschner2012, Reference Teschner2014; Van Bockstael 2014, 2019; Spiegel Reference Spiegel2015; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020). Similarly, in Ghana, it is estimated that up to 1.1 million people are directly involved in ASM, while 4.4 million people depend on it indirectly, making its socio-economic importance indisputable (Hilson Reference Hilson2016: 548).
The sector retained its informal status until the 1980s, when Ghana introduced Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) to reform its economy. In 1986, Ghana implemented the Minerals and Mining Law (PNDCL 153), which privatised the sector and opened it up to foreign large-scale mining (LSM) companies. The formalisation of the ASM industry came after a delay of three years, by which time a widespread phenomenon in the mining sector – the clear prioritisation of LSM, or large-scale mining ‘bias’ (Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Ayelazuno & Mawuko-Yevugah Reference Ayelazuno and Mawuko-Yevugah2019; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a, Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020b; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Sauerwein and Owen2020; Holley et al. Reference Holley, Smith, Jimenez, Cabezas and Restrepo-Baena2020; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020) had already become evident. With this law, the ASM sector was marked by its division into the legal and illegal dimensions, where basically the only differentiating feature became the ownership of an official permit for small-scale mining (Okoh & Hilson Reference Okoh and Hilson2011; Teschner Reference Teschner2012).
Causes of the prevailing informality in ASM
Formalisation is often seen as a remedy for reducing the negative impacts of ASM and maximising its development potential (Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Van Bockstael Reference Van Bockstael2014; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2017; McQuilken & Hilson Reference McQuilken and Hilson2018; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Buss et al. Reference Buss, Rutherford, Stewart, Côté, Sebina-Zziwa, Kibombo and Lebert2019; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020; Adu-Baffour et al. Reference Adu-Baffour, Daum and Birner2021; Owusu et al. Reference Owusu, Afrifa and Obeng2021). However, despite these benefits, the sector remains extensively informal in many developing regions, including Ghana, with 85% of operators still working illegally (Teschner Reference Teschner2012; Afriyie et al. Reference Afriyie, Ganle and Adomako2016).
Scholars offer several explanations for the prevailing informality. Firstly, the very process of registration and obtaining a licence is costly, while bringing only minimal benefits for operators (Hilson & Potter Reference Hilson and Potter2005; Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Geenen Reference Geenen2012; Hilson Reference Hilson2016; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson, Maconachie, McQuilken and Goumandakoye2017; Yankson & Gough Reference Yankson and Gough2019; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a, Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020b; Wireko-Gyebi et al. Reference Wireko-Gyebi, Asibey, Amponsah, King, Braimah, Darko and Lykke2020). The majority of ASM operators are driven into the sector by poverty related to low farming incomes, unemployment and limited alternative sources of income (e.g. Hilson & Banchirigah Reference Hilson and Banchirigah2009; Okoh & Hilson Reference Okoh and Hilson2011; Hilson & Garforth Reference Hilson and Garforth2012; Teschner Reference Teschner2014; Hilson Reference Hilson2016; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson, Maconachie, McQuilken and Goumandakoye2017, Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a, Reference Hilson, Zolnikov, Ortiz and Kumah2018b; Ofori & Ofori Reference Ofori and Ofori2018; Vogel et al. Reference Vogel, Musamba and Radley2018), and therefore lack sufficient funding to obtain a licence.
Secondly, the bureaucratic burden in connection with the licensing process has become another barrier to formalisation. The centralised, logistically challenging, and lengthy process of registration discourages operators, as they do not have the resources and skills, including literacy, to participate in formalisation (Hilson & Potter Reference Hilson and Potter2005; Geenen Reference Geenen2012; Spiegel Reference Spiegel2015; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson, Maconachie, McQuilken and Goumandakoye2017, Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Holley et al. Reference Holley, Smith, Jimenez, Cabezas and Restrepo-Baena2020; Smits et al. Reference Smits, McDonald, Smith, Gonzalez, Lucena, Martinez, Restrepo and Rosas2020; Adu-Baffour et al. Reference Adu-Baffour, Daum and Birner2021). Hilson & Maconachie (Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020b: 153) explain this situation by reference to the lack of interest on the part of governments to formalise the ASM sector and their preference for focusing on easy rent extraction from LSM, which brings us to the third point. In Ghana, most mineralised land is in the hands of LSM companies whose concessions cover nearly 29% of the total surface area of the country (Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Sauerwein and Owen2020: 4), resulting in a shortage of available land for registration. Thus, many ASM miners operate illegally and often within the concessions of LSM companies, which leads to disputes and conflicts between them (e.g. Hilson & Yakovleva Reference Hilson and Yakovleva2007; Hilson Reference Hilson and Botchwey2011; Teschner Reference Teschner2012; Andrews Reference Andrews2015; Katz-Lavigne Reference Katz-Lavigne2019; Kemp & Owen Reference Kemp and Owen2019; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Sauerwein and Owen2020).
Some scholars (e.g. Teschner Reference Teschner2012; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Adu-Darko2014, Reference Hilson, Hilson, Maconachie, McQuilken and Goumandakoye2017, Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a, Reference Hilson, Zolnikov, Ortiz and Kumah2018b; Tschakert Reference Tschakert2016; Abdulai Reference Abdulai2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Buss et al. Reference Buss, Rutherford, Stewart, Côté, Sebina-Zziwa, Kibombo and Lebert2019; Botchwey et al. Reference Botchwey, Crawford, Loubere and Lu2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a) explain the prevailing informality of ASM as an inherently political problem. For many political, traditional and business elites the current status quo is convenient, as it brings them profit, whether political or financial, thereby further encouraging and maintaining the informality through their own corrupt practices and clientelism.
Another important factor behind the growth of illegal operators in Ghana is Chinese engagement, reaching 50,000 operators in 2013 (Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Adu-Darko2014; Botchwey et al. Reference Botchwey, Crawford, Loubere and Lu2019). By bringing much-needed modernisation and intensification of mining into this long-neglected sector the Chinese became a significant factor in the sector's increased contribution to gold productionFootnote 4 and the enhancement of operators’ livelihoods. However, the use of special alluvial mining crushing machines (changfa), excavators and bulldozers has contributed greatly to the vast environmental degradation and irrefutably changed the nature of ASM (Botchwey et al. Reference Botchwey, Crawford, Loubere and Lu2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021).
Radical top-down formalisation as a path to the greater marginalisation of ASM
The conclusions of researchers are in sharp contrast to Ghanaian governments’ understanding of galamsey. The official position may be described as a ‘get rich quick’ narrative (Hilson Reference Hilson2010, Reference Hilson2016; Hilson & Garforth Reference Hilson and Garforth2013; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Adu-Darko2014; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020), explaining the miners’ involvement with reference to opportunism and greed, while highlighting galamsey's environmental and social ills (Hilson Reference Hilson2001; Ofosu-Mensah Reference Ofosu-Mensah2011; Andrews Reference Andrews2015). In line with this understanding, governments have repeatedly tackled the issue by deploying unsustainable, coercive and military-style measures.
This radical top-down formalisation is described by some scholars (Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Adu-Darko2014; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford and Botchwey2018; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a) as a façade and distraction to mislead the population, media and the donors about the government's commitment to fight galamsey which has missed the mark, as elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa (Geenen Reference Geenen2012; Spiegel Reference Spiegel2015; Vogel et al. Reference Vogel, Musamba and Radley2018; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020). It also has exacerbated the socio-economic situation, marginalisation and inequalities in rural mining communities (Hilson & Yakovleva Reference Hilson and Yakovleva2007; Banchirigah Reference Banchirigah2008; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Adu-Darko2014; Dery Tuokuu et al. Reference Dery Tuokuu, Idemudia, Bawelle and Baguri Sumani2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021), while military personnel involved have been accused of profiting from galamsey via corruption and connections to powerful actors in the sector (Tschakert Reference Tschakert2016; Abdulai Reference Abdulai2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Wireko-Gyebi et al. Reference Wireko-Gyebi, Asibey, Amponsah, King, Braimah, Darko and Lykke2020).
With criminalisation resulting from the deployment of the top-down coercive formalisation measures and overlooking of the sector's role in the alleviation of poverty, Ghana has been bucking the trend in the region and the international organisations’ recommendations acknowledging the importance of ASM, and emphasising a constructive approach to its formalisation and integration into broader economic and rural development strategies (African Union 2009; Geenen Reference Geenen2012; Hilson Reference Hilson2017; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson, Maconachie, McQuilken and Goumandakoye2017, Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a, Reference Hilson, Zolnikov, Ortiz and Kumah2018b; Yankson & Gough Reference Yankson and Gough2019; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a; Smits et al. Reference Smits, McDonald, Smith, Gonzalez, Lucena, Martinez, Restrepo and Rosas2020). Even the measures presented in the governmental plan in 2018 (MLNR 2017) are seen as highly problematic and already overwhelmingly unpopular among operators (Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020).
#StopGalamsey campaign and government measures
The #StopGalamsey campaign, also referred to as #StopGalamseyNow (SGNC), which started in early 2017, is an Accra-based and media-led initiative aiming to raise public awareness of the impacts of galamsey while calling for the curbing of it. It was initiated within a climate of already growing concerns about the negative environmental impacts of galamsey resulting from its expansion and uncontrolled mechanisation (Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020: 197), while public condemnation of it over the past years has already been high (Hilson Reference Hilson2017; Ayelazuno & Mawuko-Yevugah Reference Ayelazuno and Mawuko-Yevugah2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021). A crucial point for the formation of SGNC then became the concerns expressed by The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) about water pollution and calling for urgent action, otherwise Ghana would need to import drinking water from abroad (Allotey Reference Allotey2017).
The creators of the campaign were employees of the Accra-based radio station Citi FM, who took the debate on galamsey onto Twitter under the hashtag #StopGalamsey in order to mobilise public support against it and pressure the government to respond to the menace (Ayelazuno & Mawuko-Yevugah Reference Ayelazuno and Mawuko-Yevugah2019: 246). In April 2017, they took the fight ‘from the studios to the streets … to raise awareness on the menace’ (Modern Ghana 2017). Leaflets with images of destroyed land and water bodies were distributed in the streets of Accra, calling upon Ghanaians to join the fight. Citi FM also articulated five demands to be addressed by stakeholders: (1) The total cessation of all small- and medium-scale mining for a period of six months; (2) The cessation of the issuance of new mining licences for a year; (3) The reclassification of mining categories to reflect the use of new/larger equipment; (4) The allowance of water bodies to regenerate their natural ecology; and (5) Tree planting and a land reclamation project (Modern Ghana 2017).
The SGNC managed to gain attention and support from key political figures, media outlets, NGOs, religious organisations and think tanks (GhanaWeb 2017a). The outcome of these joint forces was the formation of the Media Coalition Against Galamsey (MCAG) (Citi FM 5.4.2017), with Kenneth Ashigbey, at that time the Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Ltd (publisher of the DG), as the Convenor of the Steering Committee,Footnote 5 with its declared objective to ‘carry out public education on the ills of illegal mining activities; carry out advocacy with stakeholders to ensure the eradication of galamsey and to promote sustainable mining’ (Stop Galamsey Now 2018). In April, MCAG also started to raise awareness by encouraging protests across the country, organising the so-called ‘National Red Friday’ (Ghana Star 2017).
MCAG managed to gain important endorsement and sponsorship from private businesses, international donors and the key ministries and governmental entities responsible for the sectors affected by galamsey, such as the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Mining (Stop Galamsey Now 2018). A critical factor for its legitimacy was the support expressed by Akufo-Addo, who stated that he would put his presidency on the line in the fight against galamsey (Kwawukume Reference Kwawukume2017). Such a commitment came just a few months after he had promised, during his presidential campaign, to formalise the sector while condemning previous military actions (GhanaWeb 2016).
The timing of the campaign was convenient for the government, as media pressure mounted at the beginning of the term of the newly elected Akufo-Addo (Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020: 195), who no longer had to rely on electoral support from miners, at least until the next elections (Abdulai Reference Abdulai2017),Footnote 6 and reacted promptly. The then Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Peter Amewu, immediately placed a moratorium on licence issuance for all ASM activities, whether legal or illegal (GhanaWeb 2017b), while entirely ignoring the socio-economic importance of the sector and the inevitable devastating impact of the ban on it, which was not lifted until December 2018 (Nyavor Reference Nyavor2018). Akufo-Addo quickly formed the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM),Footnote 7 tasked with overseeing the implementation of the ban. Similarly, as early as April 2017, in response to the media pressure, special ‘galamsey courts’ were set up to exclusively prosecute arrested operators (Shaban Reference Shaban2017).
In July 2017, these measures were backed by a vast military and police action initiated by Amewu and endorsed by the President, named Operation Vanguard (OV), with over 400 security personnel deployed across the country to fight any ASM activity through arrests, confiscation and destruction of equipment, while abusing human rights (Hilson Reference Hilson2017; Wireko-Gyebi et al. Reference Wireko-Gyebi, Asibey, Amponsah, King, Braimah, Darko and Lykke2020). By September 2019, the number of arrested miners reached 2619, of whom 22% were foreigners, 15% of them Chinese (Ashigbey Reference Ashigbey2019). These steps gained overwhelming domestic support (Armah-Attoh Reference Armah-Attoh2017) and endorsement from foreign governments with interests in the LSM industry (Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a: 8).
In June 2018, Akufo-Addo introduced a comprehensive roadmap on lifting the small-scale mining ban, focusing on more permanent measures in the fight against galamsey (Myjoyonline.com 2018). A fundamental part of this was a five-year initiative, the Multi-Sectoral Mining Integrated Project (MMIP), combining several approaches from law enforcement, social interventions, technical control and support intended to lead to job creation and a sustainable livelihood for mining communities (MLNR 2017).
The official measures have been criticised by some scholars for their devastating impact on mining communities (Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Dery Tuokuu et al. Reference Dery Tuokuu, Idemudia, Bawelle and Baguri Sumani2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Zolnikov Reference Zolnikov2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021). The MMIP has been criticised for being only a combination of strategies that have proven unsuccessful in the past (Hilson Reference Hilson2017), which are already unpopular among operators for their failure to address the roots of the problem, while offering unattractive alternative livelihood opportunities (Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Wireko-Gyebi et al. Reference Wireko-Gyebi, Asibey, Amponsah, King, Braimah, Darko and Lykke2020). Some scholars (Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a) also question the environmental protection motive driving the coercive measures as unconvincing. The government's drastic steps only served to maintain rent-seeking from LSM, ASM and international donors who rewarded these measures, regarding them as a serious commitment to formalisation.
Despite the MMIP's assignment to re-evaluate ASM regulations, attention has been paid rather to the enforcement of the existing or introduction of harsher measures against miners.Footnote 8 Unsurprisingly, the ban and OV were disappointing, as they failed to prevent operators from returning to mining (Ayelazuno & Mawuko-Yevugah Reference Ayelazuno and Mawuko-Yevugah2019; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Wireko-Gyebi et al. Reference Wireko-Gyebi, Asibey, Amponsah, King, Braimah, Darko and Lykke2020). Once again, the government responded with yet another military action – ‘Operation Halt II’ in May 2021, replacing the dissolved and discredited OV (Extra News Ghana 2021).
The measures implemented by the government are a result of calls for more severe punishments with a large contribution of the MCAG pressure, which provided them with legitimacy in the eyes of the public and enabled the government to continue to seek rent from the sector. Kpienbaareh et al. (Reference Kpienbaareh, Kansanga, Konkor and Luginaah2021) see this media role as yielding welcome tangible changes, thereby demonstrating successful cooperation between the media and government. This paper argues otherwise. As the analysis below will show, the DG helped to portray galamsey as a threat and to further criminalise and dehumanise it without recognising its socio-economic importance, while to a large extent overlooking the government's collusive informal engagement in ASM.
METHODOLOGY
This study is a content analysis of media frames and employs a qualitative inductive method to identify media frames in order to answer the following question – How was galamsey framed in the Daily Graphic during the media campaign? The author employs an issue-specific approach, which ‘allows for investigation of the framing of particular events in a great specificity and detail’ (De Vreese et al. Reference De Vreese, Jochen, Holli and Semetko2001: 108), and is applied in order to analyse the content of 176 articles that were published in the state-owned Daily Graphic (DG) newspaper between 4 April 2017 and 2019, covering the first two years of the campaign. The DG is the biggest print media in Ghana with more than 1.5 million daily readers (Elliott Reference Elliott2018), which became one of the main driving forces in the campaign. The newspapers were chosen also for their availability in archives in Accra and for covering the whole two-year period of the campaign.Footnote 9
Articles were gathered during field research in Ghana conducted in 2018, and were complemented with available online editions to cover the entire period.Footnote 10 Articles were selected based on the appearance of key words – galamsey, illegal small-scale or artisanal mining. Each text contains elements of a frame determined based on Entman's (Reference Entman1993) definition. Also, the quantity and type of sources are coded to manifest the distinction between them.
Elements forming a frame are operationalised in the following way:
(1) Problem definition – determining what is caused by a causal agent, i.e. what is the core problem of the story; what are the costs and benefits resulting from the actions of the causal agent?
(2) Diagnosis of causes – identification of the forces that stand behind a particular issue; who bears the responsibility for the fallouts; explanation of why the causal agent acts the way he/she does.
(3) Moral judgement – description of causal agents and adjectives used in relation to them and their actions; are the actions judged positively, neutrally or negatively?Footnote 11
(4) Suggested remedies – what options are listed as possible solutions to the problem; how are the offered solutions justified; what effect is expected from the listed solutions?
ANALYSIS OF GALAMSEY FRAMING IN THE DAILY GRAPHIC DURING THE #STOPGALAMSEY CAMPAIGN
Based on the above-mentioned definition of frames and the operationalisation of the concept, four major frames were identified in 155 out of 176 articles:Footnote 12 environmental menace (58 cases), criminal activity (54), complex menace (27) and corruption and collusion (16) (see Table I and Figure 1). The frames that were identified in the DG during the first two years of the media campaign are ranked according to the number of included articles – from the most numerous/dominant to less numerous/less dominant ones. For ease of orientation in the analysis, within each frame, the elements that constitute the frame are numbered from 1 to 4, just as they are denoted in the methodological part of the study.
Table I Frame categories and types of sources.
Figure 1 Trend in the framing of galamsey in the Daily Graphic (no. of frames/time).
Environmental menace
Galamsey was most frequently framed as an environmental menace. (1) The greatest space here was dedicated to the environmental impact caused by galamsey – ‘Rivers Boanor and Asuorkoor … have been so heavily polluted and even more dangerously poisoned with cyanide and mercury from galamsey activities, converting the previously crystal-clear colour of the rivers into greenish brown-wastewater’ (Daily Graphic 13.4.2017). The core problem here is the very activity of galamsey, causing environmental degradation whose fallouts are endangering the very existence of the country, nation, and future generations – ‘galamsey is capable of “killing” Ghana softly and slowly’ (Daily Graphic 8.4.2017). The costs are then described in terms of expenses on water and land reclamation – ‘Ghana will need at least $100 million to reclaim lands destroyed by illegal mining activities countrywide’ (Daily Graphic 5.12.2017).
(2) Illegal ASM operators standing behind the problem are depicted as non-specific agents responsible for the environmental destruction. This category does not mention the estimated number of involved miners, and instead frequently uses abstract terms such as ‘some’ or ‘a section of society is plundering the land for gold and thereby destroying our water bodies’ (Daily Graphic 4.4.2017). Even a crude underestimation of the number is used – ‘A few hundreds of our people’ (Daily Graphic 8.4.2017), and the specific numbers are outdated – ‘It is believed that “galamsey” employed about 150,000 Ghanaians by 2002’ (Daily Graphic 12.7. 2017).
The motives of miners are usually absent, and the issue simply exists without explanation. If the driving forces are mentioned at all, they are described as profiteering and linked to the presence of foreigners in the sector – ‘The lucrative nature of “galamsey”, although damaging and illegal, has attracted some recalcitrant foreigners into the industry’ (Daily Graphic 1.6.2017). Within this frame we can also observe the Chinese element involved in galamsey, which is mentioned as one of the actors behind environmental degradation – ‘some few Ghanaians and some Chinese to destroy the nation’ (Daily Graphic 21.4.2017).
(3) Illegal operators are described as a destructive force decimating the environment. One often encounters the call for the engagement of ‘all well-intentioned Ghanaians’ (Daily Graphic 19.12.2018) in the fight against galamsey, as if anyone with a different opinion is to be classified as morally problematic. The foreign (especially Chinese) involvement mentioned in the frame contributes to the perception of the activity as something non-Ghanaian, which accounts for up to a quarter of the cases. The tone of this frame is solely negative, presenting only the destructive impacts and marginalising arguments emphasising the livelihood dimension of galamsey.
(4) The remedies suggested are non-specific, emotional and justified in terms of saving the nation through saving the environment. The suggested solutions are predominantly built on merging all the segments of the society and mobilising it against galamsey – ‘all Ghanaians to rise up to the clarion call to help save our water bodies from further pollution by reporting any nefarious activities by illegal miners, be they community or family members’ (Daily Graphic 23.2.2018), and in favour of oppressive law enforcement measures – ‘galamsey requires all the ruthlessness required and the full coercive power of the state to stem the tide’ (Daily Graphic 7.4.2017). These efforts should then lead to ‘arrest the galamsey menace to preserve our heritage once and for all’ (Daily Graphic 17.7.2017).
The environmental menace dominates in editorials (11 out of total 16 cases), which makes it clear where the newspaper's position lies. The way of disparaging alternative views of galamsey as a survival strategy in the editorials only further reflects this troublesome stance towards the issue – ‘The excuse that people turn to this illegal means to fend for themselves because they are not employed is simply untenable and must not be tolerated again’ (Daily Graphic 18.4.2017).
Largely, the frame is based on government sources (33%), and proclamations of the MCAG's members (16%), whose views override any counter-opinions. Similarly, many articles are based on business sources (12%) and dominated by the GWCL, whose activities and profits were affected by galamsey, thus further emphasising the negative stance.
The timeline (Figure 1) shows that this frame dominated mainly in the first months of the campaign. Subsequent changes may be explained by the gradually declining interest in the issue on the part of the DG and by the launch of OV, which is projected into the criminal activity frame, and by the introduction of more comprehensive government initiatives that also started to project into the discourse.
Criminal activity
Criminal activity, the second most frequent type of frame identified in the DG, (1) presents galamsey as a dangerous activity breaching the law, and accordingly it mainly informs on arrests and prosecution of illegal miners – ‘arrest of the 75 suspects comprising 70 males and five females … 57 suspects out of the number who were suspected to have direct involvement in the activities were sent to court to face the law’ (Daily Graphic, 11.1.2018). Its tone is often very factual, and galamsey is presented as an activity that requires costly and extensive police and military action.
(2) Information is missing about the miners’ motives, and the activity is occasionally explained with reference to a criminal and morally corrupt attitude and profit-seeking. The most common information is the names and ages of the arrested operators – ‘The spokesperson of the team … identified the Chinese nationals as 41-year-old Tan Zhonguang, 40-year-old Wei Wenzxue, Li Shiping, 54, and Wei Hue Lim 35’ (Daily Graphic 22.5.2018). The number of illegal miners involved in the activity is missing, and the mentioned numbers only concern arrests in a specific case and in total during OV – ‘Three hundred and forty suspected galamsey operators, including Chinese nationals, have so far been arrested’ (Daily Graphic 2.10.2017).
A very common element occurring in this frame is the ‘othering’ of the sector by presenting galamsey as a criminal activity driven mainly by the Chinese. This element occurs in 30 articles, in which foreigners are portrayed as the force that stands solely behind the activity. Unprecedented attention is given to the case of the ‘Chinese “galamsey” queen, En Huang, also known as Aisha’ (Daily Graphic 13.7.2017) and her four Chinese co-workers. Between August 2017 and December 2018 ten articles were published reporting their criminal cases in detail, including Huang's personal information, which is not available in any other case of an illegal operator – ‘a businesswoman, married to a Ghanaian and had children who were all residing in the country’ (Daily Graphic 10.5.2017). Huang therefore became the most famous galamsey operator, even though Chinese miners constituted only a small proportion of the arrested operators.
(3) Illegal miners are depicted as culprits, offenders, terrorists and as ‘notorious’ operators, who keep coming back to the illegal activity despite the arrests – ‘The recalcitrant attitude of these “galamseyers”, indicates that [they] may be back in the rivers, destroying them again now that they are on bail’ (Daily Graphic 17.10.2018). In some cases, galamseyers are portrayed as ‘dangerous’ through the highlighting of the confiscation of weapons and description of military action – ‘the other army of Ghanaians working for them [the Chinese] managed to escape’ (Daily Graphic 22.5.2018). Again, the tone of the frame is overwhelmingly negative.
(4) The main remedy suggested is law enforcement, including arrests, investigation, prosecution and confiscation of equipment by the security forces – ‘Why must it take government to deploy 400 strong battalion of soldiers and police officers today to enforce this law as if Ghana was going to war against some terrible terrorists from unknown planet?’ - (Daily Graphic 14.8.2017), who are depicted as saviours from disaster while restoring order, and whose actions ‘are meant to protect them [people in mining communities] and the future of their own children to get good food to eat, potable water to drink and fresh air to breathe. Thus, when they see the soldiers and police officers coming, they should not run away, rather they should approach them and make them “aaatuuu”Footnote 13 like the saviour’ (Daily Graphic 14.8.2017).
Harsh penalties for operators are presented as another possible remedy, as the MCAG expressed discontent with the insufficient prosecution of offenders – ‘We [MCAG] believe that the people within our Judiciary and the justice delivery system are becoming our weakest link in the effort to fight illegal mining’ (Daily Graphic 12.4.2017), while calling for harsher penalties because ‘most of the illegal miners would go back to the illegality if they were only fined meagre amount without any deterring punishments’ (Daily Graphic 28.9.2017).
The overwhelmingly negative tone of the frame is related to the choice of sources, as it relies heavily on those from security forces (43%) or the government (26%).
Complex menace
The complex menace category defines galamsey as (1) an issue having a negative impact not only on the environment, but also on socio-economic development. Besides water pollution, land degradation and health threats, a decline in school attendance and negative impact on state incomes are mentioned. However, apart from the environmental and security costs, this frame notes also the benefits produced by galamsey, with one case even emphasising its economic significance – ‘Gold production from small-scale and illegal mining … continues to increase, with output estimated at 34 percent of national production in the past few years’ (Daily Graphic 10.10.2017).
(2) We may observe a greater effort to understand the driving forces behind galamsey with reference to the argument that the problem behind it is ‘rural mass poverty and unemployment’ (Daily Graphic 13.10.2017), and that galamsey becomes a way ‘of addressing poverty in the district, which was pushing some parents to permit their children to engage in the illegal activities’ (Daily Graphic 7.12.2017). There is also a clearer identification of a social segment involved – youth – ‘We will be happy to see a chunk of our youth in gainful employment and meeting their basic needs’ (Daily Graphic 19.1.2018). Similarly, more precise estimations about the number of miners emerge in one case – ‘The artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), including galamsey, also contributes significantly to the livelihoods of about one million Ghanaians and about three million dependents’ (Daily Graphic 10.10.2017). Unlike the previous frames, the engagement of Chinese miners is only rarely discussed here.
This is also the only frame that recognises another otherwise absent actor that contributes to the environmental problems, namely LSM companies –their negative role is mentioned in only one article – ‘big mining companies must be made to adhere strictly to regulatory regimes that would help to preserve the environment’ (Daily Graphic 16.7.2018).
(3) Galamsey and operators are mostly portrayed as a destructive and dangerous force jeopardising human lives, the economy and the environment. However, this frame is still less negative, as in six cases the assessment of galamsey is neutral, due to the inclusion of some positive judgement – ‘If Ghana is able to streamline operation of galamsey, the activity could boost investment, create jobs and support community development and environmental sustainability’ (Daily Graphic 13.10.2017).
(4) The remedies presented are more complex and emerged with the introduction of the MMIP, as they refer to the sector's reforms and a ‘need for democratising and decentralising of the licence acquisition process’ (Daily Graphic 19.2.2019) related to it. Likewise, the frame emphasises the introduction of alternative livelihood projects as a solution – ‘Instead of the combative approach, the government should provide alternative and sustainable livelihoods for the people and find out what drives them to go into galamsey’ (Daily Graphic 25.11.2017). The suggested remedies are expected to halt galamsey and transform it ‘into vibrant medium-scale businesses in the long run’ (Daily Graphic 5.11.2017).
The emphasis on the government as a solver of the issue through its proposed policies is projected into the sources, where it dominates with 46%. The effort to seek more comprehensive and inclusive solutions is evident in the higher balance of other sources – there is a similar proportion of media (11%), traditional authorities (8%), NGOs, legal miners and scholars (all with 7%), while the security forces are absent.
Corruption and collusion
When the MCAG was launched, it set itself the goal to ‘name and shame officials who put impediments in the way of justice or who turn out [to be] accomplices in the galamsey business’ and to publish ‘investigative stories to name and shame “the big fishes” [sic] involved’ (Peace FM Online 2017). This goal was only partially accomplished in the monitored period, since galamsey defined as (1) a problem of corruption and collusion concerned a mere 16 cases. Galamsey in this category is presented as an issue of a corrupt conduct and collusion among politicians, officers and security forces on all levels of the state administration and galamsey operators. The costs that galamsey bears in this frame mainly relate to the undermining of the government's effort and credibility invested in the fight.
(2) The actors behind the issue are identified as the ‘big boys’, who sponsor galamsey, rent equipment and have connections to political parties as ‘Some high-ranking politicians, such as ministers of state, Members of Parliament and chief executives of assemblies, are also suspected to be deeply involved in galamsey operations’ (Daily Graphic 24.5.2017). The cause of the issue is the corrupt behaviour of those who were supposed to fight galamsey– ‘he [Kenneth Ashigbey] warned that those leaders who were hiding behind the mask and partaking in galamsey operations, would not be spared by the media should their involvement be made known’ (Daily Graphic 28.4.2017).
The need to look at actors other than just the miners is emphasised, since the ‘perpetrators often arrested in illegal mining pits were not the only individuals involved in the galamsey business’ (Daily Graphic 13.11.2017). Foreigners illegally involved in mining are likewise mentioned within this context – ‘sacking the Chinese amounted to scratching the surface of the problem’ (Daily Graphic 31.5.2018).
The DG eventually managed to name some ‘big fish’ only as late as February 2019. This is related to the work of the well-known Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger Eye PI team. Their two-part ‘Galamsey Fraud’ reportage, using hidden cameras captures the Secretary to the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Illegal Mining (IMCIM) and Presidential Staffer, Charles Bissue, who ‘emerges as a facilitator for a company seeking to circumvent laid down processes to be given clearance for its mining operations’ (Daily Graphic 1.3.2019). Besides Bissue, there are also other ‘security operatives, informants and go-betweens’ captured on the video, offering ‘information on the movements of a security taskforce against illegal miners, and others who offer to provide armed guard for the company's concession’ (Daily Graphic 1.3.2019).
(3) Galamsey is depicted as a morally problematic activity of corrupt individuals, driven by selfish and greedy motives. Their conduct is ‘in sharp contrast with the objectives of the very institutions they work with or purport to work for’ (Daily Graphic 1.3.2019). Given the extensive corruption, the Ghana Chamber of Mines (GCM) even calls for a reclassification of galamsey activity as ‘organised crime’ (Daily Graphic 13.11.2017), where the engagement of ordinary operators on galamsey sites is not particularly relevant. With one exception, in which galamsey is presented also as a sector with ‘enormous potential to contribute to the economy's development’ (Daily Graphic 13.11.2017), this category presents it negatively as a corruption-ridden activity.
(4) The remedies proposed within this frame include media exposure – ‘one of the solutions to dealing with the issue of galamsey was for the media personnel to turn the heat on Ghanaians in high positions’ (Daily Graphic 19.6.2017), investigation – ‘the Minister of Defence … has ordered … to immediately launch investigations into reports that some military men were providing security for illegal miners’ (Daily Graphic 24.5.2017), law enforcement and imposition of harsher penalties – ‘we [the GCM] have to make sure that there are stringent laws that will serve as a disincentive for recalcitrant illegal miners and their sponsors’ (Daily Graphic 13.11. 2017). The adoption of these remedies should lead to a curbing of the subversion of efforts to stop galamsey – ‘as captured in Part One of Anas’ Galamsey Fraud, it appears government has more on its hands to do to achieve that national objective’ (Daily Graphic 28.2.2019).
The presentation of the issue as corrupt behaviour is reflected in the sources as 47% referring to government or its agencies. There is also a considerable share of media sources (26%), which may be explained by their role in revealing corruption.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
An analysis of media frames reveals that the Daily Graphic overwhelmingly portrayed galamsey as an environmentally dangerous and criminal activity that requires the adoption of the most brutal measures to curb it. In this way, the DG has utterly failed to acknowledge any socio-economic significance of the sector that has otherwise been highlighted among scholars and international organisations, the formalisation and promotion of which has been seen as instrumental in achieving economic growth and alleviation of poverty in rural areas in many developing countries, including Ghana.
The content analysis of the media frames shows that the DG presented galamsey mainly as an environmental menace (58 articles), criminal activity (54 articles), complex menace (27 articles) and corruption and collusion (16 articles) issue during the media campaign. In all the frames, galamsey is presented highly negatively, as a menace and threat to the environment, society and the whole nation. The DG provides little information about the motives of illegal miners, or of those who stand behind galamsey in most of the frames. Journalists are not asking why galamsey exists and what its driving forces are. Instead, they reduce its complexity to the troublesome characters of operators, their greedy ambitions, and conduct of criminals. Only the complex menace frame occasionally identifies rural poverty and unemployment as the driving forces for often young people, and ascribes minor economic significance and benefits to the sector.
The corruption and collusion frame went beyond the engagement of ordinary operators and denoted the driving force behind the issue as corrupt elites profiting from the status quo. The emergence of this frame is mainly attributed to the work of investigative journalists, which only highlights the significance of investigative journalism as an important means in exposing corrupt practices of public officials in the region (Phiri Reference Phiri2008; Lublinski et al. Reference Lublinski, Spurk, Fleury, Labassi, Mbarga, Nicolas and Rizk2015; Gyuracz Reference Gyuracz2016; Schiffrin & Lugalambi Reference Schiffrin and Lugalambi2018) and, in our case, also in understanding galamsey as a political problem (Abdulai Reference Abdulai2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Buss et al. Reference Buss, Rutherford, Stewart, Côté, Sebina-Zziwa, Kibombo and Lebert2019; Crawford & Botchwey Reference Crawford, Botchwey, Verbrugge and Geenen2020; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a). Even within the DG's coverage of galamsey, the LSM bias, widely addressed in the literature (Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Hilson and Maconachie2018a; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020a, Reference Hilson and Maconachie2020b; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Sauerwein and Owen2020; Holley et al. Reference Holley, Smith, Jimenez, Cabezas and Restrepo-Baena2020; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020), became evident as the environmental damage is attributed overwhelmingly to ASM, with the result that LSM actors do not seem to bear their share of responsibility for the fallout, although such a presentation is misleading (Ayelazuno & Mawuko-Yevugah Reference Ayelazuno and Mawuko-Yevugah2019).
The overall negative tone of all the frames may be largely ascribed to the selection of sources on which the stories were based, and which consisted to a large degree of the campaign's stakeholders, supporters and sponsors. The opposition actors are marginalised in all the frames, and the miners’ otherwise well described views (Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Dery Tuokuu et al. Reference Dery Tuokuu, Idemudia, Bawelle and Baguri Sumani2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Zolnikov Reference Zolnikov2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021) are absent. This one-sided presentation is also evident in the average number of sources that does not even amount to two per article. Moreover, in the environmental menace frame, conflicting opinions justifying miners’ engagement in galamsey are played down as irrelevant. This category reflects the DG's standpoint via a large number of editorials, where a limited understanding of galamsey as an environmental threat is presented. Similarly, the DG's standpoint is reflected in the large number of stories referring to Chinese engagement in the criminal activity frame, even though the share of arrested Chinese operators accounted for a mere 15% in over two years of the campaign, thereby helping to present the sector as non-Ghanaian.
The remedies suggested in the DG are overwhelmingly drastic. While the environmental menace frame calls for the abstract mobilisation of society in order to curb the menace endangering the motherland Ghana, the criminal activity frame suggests more specific short-sighted solutions via deploying coercive measures, and encourages the adoption of more severe punishments for miners. The Ghanaian government indeed adopted severe measures against operators; however, in addition to these, it has also come up with strategies emphasising the need to search for more long-term solutions. These, although still considered insufficient and problematic (Hilson Reference Hilson2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Dery Tuokuu et al. Reference Dery Tuokuu, Idemudia, Bawelle and Baguri Sumani2020; Eduful et al. Reference Eduful, Alsharif, Eduful, Acheampong, Eduful and Mazumder2020; Osei et al. Reference Osei, Yeboah, Kumi and Antoh2021), are also projected into the media discourse via the complex menace frame, proposing more comprehensive measures to tackle the issue. Yet this frame still represents a minor category compared with the more dominant ones – environmental menace and criminal activity. The corruption and collusion frame also suggests a law enforcement solution; however, it mainly concerns those corrupt elites that stand behind galamsey, while penalties for miners are not of such importance here. The remedy suggested is exposure by the media, whose critical role in uncovering powerful actors behind galamsey is emphasised.
To summarise, the DG's framing of galamsey failed the most vulnerable, impoverished and already marginalised segment of Ghanaian society. It did so by relying on government and security sources, whereby the DG reproduced the government's official longstanding hostile and misleading discourse, while praising and encouraging the adoption of more brutal measures and thus helping to further dehumanise and criminalise the sector.
The issue of the presentation of ASM in the media discourse remains marginalized in the literature, and this study helps to compensate for this deficiency. In this respect, the contribution of this study to the literature is twofold. Firstly, it contributes to the literature on media coverage and journalistic practice in the extractive industries in sub-Saharan Africa (Schiffrin Reference Schiffrin2009; Behrman et al. Reference Behrman, Canonge, Purcell and Schiffrin2012), as it highlights very serious limitations exhibited even in a free media environment such as that of Ghana. Whether these limitations, reflected in the unbalanced stories and lack of comprehensive understanding of the issue, were a result of deliberate collaboration between the media and the government and/or a lack of journalistic expertise required for this knowledge-demanding topic, is beyond the scope of this article. However, such a gap in the available knowledge should provide an incentive for future research to fill.
Secondly, with respect to the literature on the formalisation of the ASM sector (e.g. Siegel & Veiga Reference Siegel and Veiga2009; Van Bockstael Reference Van Bockstael2014; Hilson & Maconachie Reference Hilson and Maconachie2017; Bansah Reference Bansah2019; Buss et al. Reference Buss, Rutherford, Stewart, Côté, Sebina-Zziwa, Kibombo and Lebert2019; Sauerwein Reference Sauerwein2020; Owusu et al. Reference Owusu, Afrifa and Obeng2021), this study contributes to the available knowledge by revealing the highly negative and one-sided media discourse, which may have critical implications for the much-needed efforts to constructively formalise the industry through the inclusion of all the stakeholders involved in it and incorporate it into long-term development strategies. These may become difficult to justify in the eyes of the public, whose understanding of the issue is shaped by this negative portrayal of ASM.
In addition, this is also relevant regarding the crucial role played by ASM in times of crises, such as political instability (Teschner Reference Teschner2014; Sovacool Reference Sovacool2019; Van Bockstael Reference Van Bockstael2019), the COVID-19 pandemic (Calvimontes et al. Reference Calvimontes, Massaro, Araujo, Moraes, Mello, Ferreira and De Theije2020; Hilson et al. Reference Hilson, Van Bockstael, Sauerwein, Hilson and McQuilken2021; Muthuri et al. Reference Muthuri, Jain, Ndegwa, Mwagandi and Tagoe2021) or climate change, for which regulated development of ASM mitigating their impacts on the most vulnerable segments of society is a must. Similarly essential is a media that understands the complexity of the sector and helps to address the issue in a professional, informed and balanced manner, without criminalising and dehumanising the impoverished majority of miners seeking a livelihood in ASM.
