Language, programming and propaganda during the SABC's first decade

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe present article argues that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), along with a number of other institutions, was a key site in the promotion of Afrikaans linguistic autonomy and a popular Afrikaner cultural self-identity ahead of the 1948 elections. It takes as its point of departure that – in keeping with the idea of the ‘imagined community’ (Anderson 1991), of nationhood being a constructed reality built from the raw material of history, culture and language – the struggle for Afrikaans within the SABC was part and parcel of the movement to create a viable Afrikaner ‘volk’, and thus helped pave the way for Afrikaner-led National Party hegemony in 1948. By using sources that include the annual reports of the SABC, the Hansard record of parliamentary debates, and the Commission of Enquiry into the SABC (Schoch 1948), the article traces the introduction of Afrikaans programming on public radio in South Africa in the mid-1930s; the turbulence of broadcasting through World War II; and outlines some of the issues of both technical infrastructure and programming production, in an attempt to provide co-equal programming for both English and Afrikaans listeners.