Limukani Mathe - Böcker

Within Africa, radio provides an important platform for accommodating diverse linguistic groups and enabling speakers to express themselves in their own local languages. This book investigates how radio broadcasting across the continent provides a platform for cultural participation and the representation of minority language speakers in a contested public sphere. In African media, a fierce contest wages for representation and participation, in which majority languages often emerge at the exclusion of minority ethnolinguistic groups. This book considers the important role that radio can play in broadcasting in minority languages. Drawing on in-depth original analysis, ethnographic observation and interviews with minority language radio hosts and guests from across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Malawi, Namibia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Kenya, this book considers to what extent African radio is accommodative of minority languages and what the challenges and prospects are for this. Ultimately, the book argues that radio’s three-tier system of broadcasting through analogue and digital radio leaves the medium of radio particularly well placed to provide equal access for ethnolinguistic groups in Africa.This ambitious and broad-ranging study will be an essential read for scholars and students of media studies and sociolinguistics in Africa.

This book examines audio-visual content production in Africa, highlighting the ways in which the rise of social networking platforms has combatted the marginalisation of minority languages across the continent.Colonial languages have tended to dominate audio-visual narratives in Africa, and although postcolonial film and video production initiatives have tried to counter this, in practice they perpetuate the marginalisation of minority language groups by favouring major indigenous languages such as isiZulu in South Africa, Shona in Zimbabwe, Yoruba or Igbo in Nigeria. This book demonstrates the ways in which the internet and the accompanying boom in popularity of visual social networking applications such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, X, and Vimeo have disrupted dominant language video productions and traditional media marketing models. As audiences have fragmented, seeking out content produced in their own languages, traditional gatekeepers have been challenged. Drawing on studies from across the continent, the book demonstrates the varied and multifaceted ways in which minority language audio-visual content creators are using these platforms to negotiate with or contest dominant languages.This timely investigation into the political economy of contemporary audio-visual production in minority languages in Africa will be of interest to researchers across media studies and sociolinguistics in Africa.

This book redefines multilingualism via the concept of radio in Africa. The book also suggests practical measures through which linguistic co-existence could be achieved and explores cases that redefine, reconceptualize and reframe multilingualism on African radio.

This book redefines multilingualism via the concept of radio in Africa. Africa presents unique challenges of lingual diversity which the media still struggles to accommodate, particularly when it comes to indigenous languages. Contributors argue that the linguistic realities of African radio reflect ethnic co-existence and fluidity of identity in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial contexts. They argue that communities consist of several “majorized” and “minoritized” indigenous languages which, if closely analysed, reflect a commonality of multilingualism. The book also suggests practical measures through which linguistic co-existence could be achieved and explores cases that redefine, reconceptualize and reframe multilingualism on African radio.

This book explores the various kinds of political communication that social media enables or curtails in African indigenous languages. Despite calls to decolonise the media, indigenous languages still have minimal representation on digital platforms like Twitter (now X), Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram, and existing studies have tended to focus on stylistic elements rather than a deeper exploration of how indigenous languages are used in political communication. This book addresses this gap by delving into how local language discursive texts, which are central to participatory journalism and citizen interpretive communities, function on social media platforms and online forums. Often complex and sometimes vulgar, these texts play a significant role in political communication in Africa, and their study offers important new perspectives on the potential of digital platforms as spaces for unrestricted linguistic expression.