More Than Just Edutainment: Indigenous South African Community Radio Music Programmes as Preservers of African Traditional Cultures

Since their establishment on African soil, indigenous language community radio stations have proven to be a tool for advancing development communication, active citizen participation from a bottom-up perspective and rural development. This is despite the historical power dynamics, mainstream media hegemony as well as the political economy of the media—which have mainly favoured commercial media outlets and Public Service Broadcasting in South Africa. This chapter aligns itself with Molefi Kete Asante’s call for a “return or re-memory of the nature of African communication within the context of tradition, community, and values”. Through a qualitative research approach, the chapter reports on research conducted on two indigenous language community radio stations in South Africa, namely, Inkonjane Community Radio in the Eastern Cape, which broadcasts in Isimpondo (a sub-language of IsiXhosa) and Mahikeng FM—which broadcasts in Setswana language in the North West Province. We held focus group discussions with 36 community members in Mahikeng, the capital city of the North West Province, and eMampondweni (Flagstaff), a rural town found in OR Tambo District municipality, while in-depth interviews were conducted with four indigenous language music programme producers and station managers at both community radio stations. Borrowing from Mano and Milton’s critical discussion on media, communication and decoloniality, we argue that community media, particularly indigenous language music programmes, are integral in that they can help facilitate local culture and everyday life. Against the backdrop of 100 years of radio broadcasting in South Africa, this chapter is aimed at transcending the age-old motif that black radio only serves to educate, inform and entertain audiences, and instead considers how radio stations aim at marginalised community development in their approach in building communities that embrace their cultures through traditional music, dance and poetry.