"Liberation radios, the propaganda stations operated by the anti-Apartheid and anticolonial movements Southern Africa, provide us with a unique lens on the relationship between broadcasters and their audiences. Most importantly, they conceptualized audiences in a specific, two-pronged way to mobiliz ... e target populations and influence global media publics. Going beyond ideas of ‘propaganda’ and circulation of media content, this article uses oral history interviews with broadcasters from the Namibian ‘Voice of Namibia’ to analyze the way broadcasters thought about and spoke to wider audiences, which included media institutions and cultural production circulating content to audiences beyond direct listeners to their station. It argues that liberation radios’ relationship with their audiences can be usefully analyzed taking theoretical models from community media research, such as the ‘rhizome’ approach that emphasizes a multiplicity of connections between media and the communities they serve." (Abstract) more

"This thesis operates from the observation that "Decolonising the Mind", i.e. a cultural decolonisation process, was needed after the independence of African countries to support and flesh out political decolonisation. Culture, as shown, played a major role in the mobilisation of support for nationa ... list movements, but after independence nationalist culture was just one among many. In both cases presented here, the most pressing issue after political independence was how to deal with the different identities that had previously existed and were onyl partially cushioned by political and cultural nationalism. Now that the political kingdom had been attained, the different language, cultural and political groups started to ask questions about their place in this kingdom. Although many politicians shared the idea that "once you have a national identity, the question of culture becomes something which flows automatically", it soon turned out to be misguided. Media and education were seen to be the major tools in "decolonising the mind". However, a close analysis of the electronic media in the two cases presented here shows that the policies for promoting national unity in programmes were largely ineffective. Instead, radio programmes, both before and after independence, provided a space to negotiate issues of national identity. This space was sometimes more, sometimes less restricted, but listeners used it as much as they could. Colonial media had, for all their focus on political control and censorship, accompanied and mediated social change. As described, this happened specifically in cultural programmes, where broadcasters were much freer in their work. However, Northern Rhodesian media were supposed to work as a catalyst to further the process of modernisation, and to help its listeners come to terms with the transition from being 'traditional' to becoming 'modern' Africans. In the Apartheid broadcasting system, culture was used consciously to construct a specific 'ethnic' identity, emphasising cultural traditions of the different language groups. But while the intentions were different, both broadcasting institutions were at the centre of negotiating ideas of tradition and modernity. Both were also established because there was a need to legitimate the respective political system. Be it the Central African Federation or a 'democratic' "South West Africa/ Namibia", the political models promoted by the authorities could not just be imposed on the people. The radios were established to give reality to these constructs, to make listeners identify with a social, political and cultural space that had been defined by colonial authorities. As shown, colonial ideologies not only surfaced in obvious propaganda programmes but also significantly determined the technical and managerial setup of the stations. While radio infrastructure was formed and reformed to structure that space – by linking three territories with different political and social power structures or, following Apartheid ideology, by assigning each language group their own space according to the homeland system – culturally as well as geographically. As shown, infrastructure mirrored the proposed political models, not just in its technical aspects (i.e., the stations' footprints, transmitting posts and frequencies), but also in management structure. As the Federal Broadcasting Services were subdivided in European and African Services, respectively catering for the whole White or Black population of all three territories, the South West African Broadcasting Corporation separated first Black and White, then subdivided the three Departments in the several language Services, each broadcasting to the designated "homeland". This infrastructure not only formed the whole process of programme production and reception but was also part of it as it imparted ideological considerations. The first order of business for independent countries was therfore to restructure the radio according to the needs of the new nations." (Conclusion, page 274-275) more