Homosexuality, Moral Panic, and Politicized Homophobia in Ghana: Interrogating Discourses of Moral Entrepreneurship in Ghanaian Media

Abstract

The study analyzes media reports about homosexuality in Ghanaian media and the reactions that they engender among the public. It argues that politicized homophobia combined with moral entrepreneurship to produce influential circuits of social, moral, and political power that were deployed to elicit particular forms of subjectivity against homosexuality. The media stimulated and sustained homophobia and heterosexism, and provided a platform for politicians and other moral entrepreneurs to mobilize antipathy in support of reactionary and exclusionary interventions that are antithetical to the very essence of liberal democracy that the country professes. While the media cannot singlehandedly effect value and attitudinal change in support of inclusive citizenship, they have a frontline role in generating critical introspection and dialogic engagement with homosexuality.

An application of the ADAPT-ITT model to an evidence-based behavioral HIV prevention intervention for men who have sex with men in Ghana

“…There were no conditions for racial disparities and or issues surrounding racial identities as the country is a Black nation. Instead, as documented in several studies, current Ghanaian laws that criminalize MSM activities and promote stigma originating from religious thought and inherited through colonization (Caroll & Itaborahy, 2015;Dai-Kosi et al, 2016;Tettey, 2016;Tweneboah, 2018;Gyamerah et al, 2020). We insisted, therefore, on incorporating such history in our contextualization of the current Ghanaian understanding of sexuality and its impact on sexual identification.…”

Marginality and otherness: the discursive construction of LGBT issues/people in the Ghanaian news media

“…To reinforce the immorality and amorality of LGBT issues, their purported consequences are highlighted: ‘would attract the wrath of Allah’ (1) and would ‘would destroy God’s best formation, that is the human being’ (3). The use of religious beliefs to justify the discriminatory discourse promoted is unsurprising because as shown in various studies, the contempt for LGBT issues, especially in media discourses, is rooted in Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs, with eschatological references that imply that LGBT people risk eternal damnation (Mohammed, 2020; Tettey, 2016). As one news report explains, citing a reverend minister: ‘there are implications for misusing any gift that pertains to your body.…”

“…Only few studies have examined news reports as primary data (e.g. Baisley, 2015; Essien and Aderinto, 2009; Tettey, 2016), but they do not employ a critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework like the current study.…”

“Ideología de género”, populismo autoritario y políticas sexuales

“…Como argumenta Rodríguez (2017), "ideología de género" como objeto político en el contexto colombiano reciente usa el miedo para dar forma a un "nosotros-pueblo" y "otro-los promotores de la ideología de género". A pesar de las diferencias, la constante en los tres ejemplos es la producción de un enemigo interno como amenaza pública y cercana, como pánico moral (Downes, 2007;Tettey, 2016).…”