The anthem as site for marketing Higher Education Institutions in Ghana

Abstract

The global trend for at least the last three decades has been that Higher Education Institutions have had to place themselves within the framework of free market economies. One central principle of free market economies is the re-envisioning of Higher Education Institutions as offering products and services to ‘consumers’ and ‘clients. An implication of this current wisdom is that HEIs have had to turn to discourses of marketisation through existing HE genres to sell the products and services that they have. This paper examines the globality of this trend from two perspectives, one being the extent to which marketisation has become a primary concern in terms of how HEIs see themselves in the specific context of Ghana; and the other is the extent to which discourses of marketisation have colonised HE genres such as anthems. Employing Martin and White’s Appraisal theory as a framework, the study investigates the anthem as a site for marketing higher education institutions in Ghana by focusing on two traditional universities of Ghana, using the anthems of the University of Ghana and the University of Cape Coast as cases. The analysis reveals that great care and intentionality are invested into the creation of the anthems because they are viewed as a rhetorical apparatus for selling institutions. The choice and use of attitudinal lexis with inscribed and upscaled positive attitudes about the universities, their infrastructure, human capital, services, and reputation are negotiated through a monoglossic stance to stimulate the interest of the audience, positively influence their perceptions about the university, align them with their values, and win their loyalty. An implication of this study is that, although current scholarship suggests strongly that marketisation in HE is a relatively recent phenomenon, it has been at the centre of the genre of higher education institutional anthems in the context of Ghana for a far longer time. The study therefore provides evidence that challenges the current thinking about the extent to which marketisation has been a concern of HEIs.