Fighting a global pandemic and local stigmatisation: War metaphors in presidential update speeches and their effect on attitudes to COVID -19 (Patients) in Ghana

Abstract

Ghana’s President has used WAR-framed metaphors in announcing and explaining both the notion of COVID-19 and the measures his government outlined to curb its spread. This paper explores the potential effects the various conceptual mappings in the WAR-framed communication by the President had on the general public in dealing with a global pandemic in a local context. This is achieved by linking the mappings in the WAR-framed communication to the attitudes and practices among the Ghanaian public. Data were drawn from 8 presidential COVID-19 updates between March 15 and May 31, 2020. Findings indicate that the use of WAR-framed communication successfully evoked fear among the general population. However, this transcended the virus to COVID-19 patients (and their families), provoking a cause of action among the general public to fight not only the virus but also COVID-19 patients (and their families). This appears to have caused stigmatisation of COVID-19 patients, and led to a situation where COVID-19 positive patients became unwilling to declare their positive status and thus caused further community spread.