The digital turn in radio: A critique of institutional and organizational modeling of new radio practices and cultures

Abstract

This article conducts a critical analysis of the use of Internet and mobile phone technologies by Capital radio in Malawi. It examines the uses of the Internet, social networking sites and mobile text-messaging by the radio station. Three central questions constitute the major concerns of the article: (a) To what extent do institutional and organizational contexts shape the uptake and uses of the Internet and mobile phones by radio journalists? (b) How do the uses of the Internet and mobile phones in turn influence the institutional cultures and organizational practices? (c) To what extent, if at all, does radio convergence reconfigure traditional radio to create new spaces that augment audience participation? The article argues that any meaningful critique of the technological affordances to the radio institution must critically engage with the complex questions of the dialectical relationship between technology, structure, and agency especially given the seductive myth of the so- called new media. It concludes that digital media technologies on radio are subject to organisational, institutional, and social shaping, and that questions about the emancipatory power of these technologies especially to audiences and citizens are often exaggerated because the question of power relations between actors or interests is often overlooked. The digital turn and the demotic turn on radio therefore must not be seen as synonymous with the participatory turn, especially in African countries where the regulation of corporate power in mass media is weak and where multiple forms of the digital divide that impede on consistent and meaningful use of digital media still persist.