Abstract:
Along with the valorization of “beneficiary” participation in development praxis,
contemporary communication scholarship has tended toward internet-enabled
technologies and applications. This study breaks ranks with the implicit loss of faith
in the capacity of the so-called legacy media, and radio in particular. It argues that
precisely those advances in new technologies, together with the peculiar media ecol ogy of Ghana and Africa generally, are the bases for prenotions about the enduring
relevance of radio. To verify this claim, focus group discussions were conducted
among radio audiences in Ghana. The findings suggest three factors for a renaissance
of radio as a development communication medium: its contribution to democratic
pluralism; the use of local languages that enables social inclusion; its appropriation
of new technologies for audience participatory engagement. Radio has thus evolved
from the powerful effects notions of a one-way transmitter of information to an
increasingly more interactive, audience-centric medium.
