Reincarnating clandestine radio in post-independent Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article analyses the re-emergence of clandestine radio in post-independence Zimbabwe, and how it has become an important tool for disseminating alternative viewpoints in an environment where democratic communicative space is restricted. The article focuses specifically on SW Radio Africa, one of the major clandestine radio stations that have been beaming into Zimbabwe since 2001. It argues, based on analysis of this radio station, that by suppressing clandestine radio through jamming signals and intimidating listeners, the government has inadvertently raised people's curiosity and made these stations more visible and more popular than they otherwise would have been. Further, it argues that Zimbabweans are not passive victims of state propaganda. Rather, they continue to devise new communicative spaces outside the dominant state media empire and access alternative viewpoints from an array of emerging platforms.