The Power of the “Audience-Public”: Interactive Radio in Africa
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Journal Title
International Journal of Press/Politics
ISSN
1940-1612
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Type
Article
This Version
AM
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Srinivasan, S., & Diepeveen, S. (2018). The Power of the “Audience-Public”: Interactive Radio in Africa. International Journal of Press/Politics https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161218779175
Abstract
The convergence of newer digital communication technologies with more established radio and television broadcasts is shifting opportunities for news media to impact upon citizen-state relations. These nascent possibilities are pronounced on the African continent, where mobile telephony and increasingly plural media landscapes have given rise to popular and widespread interactive talk shows. The involvement of audience voices alters the nature of the media space where political communication happens. This paper focuses on how and why interactive broadcast media intervene into relations between citizens and authorities in new and powerful ways. Through a comparative study of interactive shows in Zambia and Kenya, this paper interrogates what audience participation means for the political nature and possibilities of the interactive radio and TV broadcast. In so doing, it shows how the indeterminate audience is the basis for competing imaginaries about power, authority and belonging among the different participants in the show, including politicians, media professionals and audience members. The political significance of the ‘audience-public’, brought into being through the interactive broadcast, it is argued, lies in the very fact that multiple and competing imaginaries are at play, which are invested in by actors pursuing diverse ends and thereby have tangible political effects.
Keywords
new technologies, radio, Africa, public sphere, audiences
Sponsorship
The research for this article was jointly funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Department for International Development (DFID) (ES/J018945/1) as part of the ‘Politics and Interactive Media in Africa’ (PiMA) research project.
Funder references
ESRC (ES/J018945/1)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161218779175
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/276309
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