Radio has been called 'Africa's medium'. Its wide accessibility is a result of a number of factors, including the liberalisation policies of the 'third wave' of democracy and its ability to transcend the barriers of cost, geographical boundaries, the colonial linguistic heritage and low literacy levels. This sets it apart from other media platforms in facilitating political debate, shaping identities and assisting listeners as they negotiate the challenges of everyday life on the continent.
Radio in Africa breaks new ground by bringing together essays on the multiple roles of radio in the lives of listeners in Anglophone, Lusophone and Francophone Africa. Some essays turn to the history of radio and its part in the culture and politics of countries such as Angola and South Africa. Others – such as the essay on Mali, gender and religion – show how radio throws up new tensions yet endorses social innovation and the making of new publics.
A number of essays look to radio's current role in creating listening communities that radically shift the nature of the public sphere. Essays on the genre of the talk show in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa point to radio's role in creating a robust public sphere. Radio's central role in the emergence of informed publics in fragile national spaces is covered in essays on the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia. The book also highlights radio's links to the new media, its role in resistance to oppressive regimes such as Zimbabwe, and points in several cases – for example in the essay on Uganda – to the importance of African languages in building modern communities that embrace both local and global knowledge.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Soundscapes of Radio in Africa
I. RADIO, POPULAR DEMOCRACY AND NEW PUBLICS
Wisdom J. Tettey: Talk Radio and Politics in Ghana: Exploring Civic and (Un)Civil Discourse in the Public Sphere
Christopher Joseph Odhiambo: From Diffusion to Dialogic Space: FM Radio Stations in Kenya
Dumisani Moyo: Contesting Mainstream Media Power: Mediating the Zimbabwe Crisis through Clandestine Radio
Dorothea E. Schulz: Equivocal Resonances: Islamic Revival and Female Radio 'Preachers' in Urban Mali
II. THE CULTURES OF RADIO: LANGUAGES OF THE EVERYDAY
Scott Straus: What Is the Relationship between Hate Radio and Violence?
Rethinking Rwanda's 'Radio Machete'
Winston Mano: Why Radio is Africa's Medium of Choice in the Global Age
Sekibakiba Peter Lekgoathi: Bantustan Identity, Censorship and Subversion on Northern Sotho Radio under Apartheid, 1961s0980s
David B. Coplan: South African Radio in a Saucepan
Dina Ligaga: Radio Theatre: The Moral Play in the Historical Context of State Control and Censorship in Kenya
Liz Gunner: Zulu Radio Drama and the Modern Subject – Restless Identities in South Africa in the 1970s
III. RADIO AND COMMUNITY: VOICES OF CHANGE
Stephanie Wolters: Radio Okapi – 100% Congolese
Tanja Bosch: Talk Radio, Democracy and the Public Sphere: 567MW in Cape Town
Maria Frahm-Arp: Radio and Religion: The Shaping of Religious Discourse
Stephen R. Davis: Voices from Without: The African National Congress, its Radio, its Allies and Exile, 1960-1984
Marissa J. Moorman: Airing the Politics of Nation: Radio in Angola, Past and Present
David Smith: Radio in Zones of Conflict – Abnormal Measures for Abnormal Circumstances
Monica B. Chibita: Multiple Publics, Multiple Languages: Radio and the Contestations of Broadcasting Language Policy in Uganda
