Abstract:
The proliferation of radio stations across Africa has engendered an increase in local
language radio stations and fuelled culturally-rooted practices of news delivery
considered by many media professionals as sub-standard. This article explores the
reception practices of multi-lingual audiences in Ghana, focusing on their views
on the different norms and approaches of local language and English language
radio newscasts. Using data from a convenience sample of 1000 radio listeners
in five Ghanaian cosmopolitan cities the study finds that audiences prefer more
performative modes of news delivery on their local language stations. It was also
evident that radio audiences are discerning and make distinctions between what is
acceptable on local language versus English language radio. These results call for a
reconsideration of western-influenced standards of news delivery and the develop ment of professional standards more accommodating of the inflections of culture.
