Using Digital Technologies in Community Radio to Promote Social Change in Kenya

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the use of digital media technologies for social change with particular reference to local communicative environments through community radio. The convergence between radio and the internet is providing new avenues for community radio and enabling it to reach new latitudes while providing internet users with a participatory experience which contributes to social change. As with traditional media, community radio stations have needed to adapt to these new technologies, and this has altered the kind of engagement that exists between audiences and community radio stations as they seek to provide a platform to promote social change. This study was premised upon the Domestication Theory that not only demonstrates why people adopt technology or not, but also how people adapt the technology to their own use. Data was collected from three community radio stations through interviews, observation, focus group discussions, and document review and was analysed using thematic analysis. The five themes that emerged from the data indicated that convergence between digital media and community radio offers multiple platforms of engagement such as social media, websites, and live streaming, and this ultimately had an impact on the social change that took place in the community.