tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/talk-radio-90768/articlesTalk radio – The Conversation2021-07-08T14:32:15Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1641412021-07-08T14:32:15Z2021-07-08T14:32:15ZSteve Kekana: an 80s South African pop star, and much more<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/410286/original/file-20210708-15-8y7z4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Steve Kekana in 2020 in Johannesburg, South Africa. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2021-07-05-disability-and-unjust-laws-failed-to-deter-kekana/">Steve Kekana</a> was one of South Africa’s most popular singers in the 1980s era of soul and disco. But he was many other things besides – he was a law teacher, talk radio host and a man who overcame apartheid and disability to thrive. Yonela Mnana is a singer, pianist and music teacher who is currently working on his PhD on South African piano. The Conversation Africa asked him for his impressions of the artist whose songs he teaches and whose paths crossed his several times.</em></p>
<h2>Who was Steve Kekana and what does he represent?</h2>
<p>Steve Kekana was a popular and award-winning singer and songwriter, who became blind at the age of five. He was born in the Zebediela district of Limpopo province in the north of South Africa, in 1958, not far from Polokwane, the capital of the province. He went to <a href="https://siloeschool.co.za/">Siloe School for the Blind</a> at Chuenespoort, Polokwane, the same school that I went to. Belgian missionaries were part of the teaching faculty.</p>
<p>He never finished school because he was expelled for championing student rights. So that’s one of the things he represents, human rights, in more ways than one. And we know his passion for labour law and that he ended up being a university lecturer.</p>
<p>And his singing. This came later – around 1979, when his first album came out. Also, he became much better known after he’d moved to Johannesburg.</p>
<p>His life intersected with mine because we attended the same school. I first met him when the school had its 50th anniversary. I was in the final years of my schooling and I had already started playing keyboards. I did music in extramural class. We used to do his songs in his absence. And one day he came through. He struck me as quite an independent person.</p>
<p>I think he didn’t like hero worship, it made him feel awkward and slightly antisocial. Later I would see that he didn’t really feel chuffed about people telling him how much they thought of his music. He was known as a very honest person.</p>
<h2>Tell us why he was so special musically</h2>
<p>In the popular music environment, his music represented everything. At first, as a singer and songwriter, he was just doing songs with commentary on social norms and issues. One of his songs speaks about this guy who always wears great outfits, tailor-made suits, but he doesn’t even have blankets to sleep on. </p>
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<p>He was as flexible as he could be in the music ethos of the time. As early as 1981, 1982 he began scooping up awards for huge hits like <em>Iphupho</em> (in isiZulu), <em>Mandla</em> (isiZulu) and <em>Abuti Thabiso</em> (Sesotho).</p>
<p>Most of the guys at the time were able to harmonise by themselves, but when it comes to his singing, we must appreciate fellow blind singer and musician <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2021-07-02-long-time-friend-mlangeni-pays-glowing-tribute-to-kekana/">Babsy Mlangeni</a>’s mentorship as well. In 1979 Babsy was already 11 years into the industry when he started working with Kekana.</p>
<p>I find that Kekana’s singing always mutated, as much as his songs did. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Iphupho.</span></figcaption>
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<p>He also moved quite a lot in terms of record labels. By 1983 he already had a label, Steve Records, which I assume was his own, that released his music. He reminds me of Frank Sinatra in this way. I think the idea of constantly reinventing himself was appealing to him. He was stealing and borrowing from all genres. The Americans do it nowadays, but Steve was doing it years ago. </p>
<p><em>Take Your Love</em> was ahead of its time, as were his collaborations with a white artist during apartheid, <a href="https://pjpowers.co.za/">PJ Powers</a>.</p>
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<h2>How popular was he?</h2>
<p>Steve’s popularity led to <a href="https://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article/Stampedes-at-Events-Over-the-Years-7361437.php">a stampede in Lesotho</a> in 1980. In fact his song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkh1HI3iLNY"><em>Kodua Ea Maseru</em></a> was about what happened. </p>
<p>Hip hop musicians trying to fill up a venue are always acting like they’re the first ones to do it in South Africa. He did it in Lesotho in an age when there was no Twitter and no marketing. Of course, then people actually went to see music more. Nowadays we see it more as a product than an experience.</p>
<p>Steve worked with a couple of bands – <a href="https://www.joburg.org.za/play_/Pages/Play%20in%20Joburg/Joburg%20Vibe/links/Why%20I%20love%20Joburg/links/Sipho-Hotstix-Mabuse.aspx">Hotstix Mabuse</a> was one of the producers. Steve, with his blind trio – Babsy Mlangeni, himself and Koloi Lebona – had garnered a lot of popularity in schools. And not only did they represent themselves, they also advocated for disability and especially blindness in a very real way. And they did it with such panache.</p>
<p>I was lucky enough to be invited to his house to help him with piano, you know, show him some scales. I think he made quite a comfortable living, really, and again I admired his independence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Take your love.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In 2010 I was invited to a workshop with other blind musicians and Steve, Babsy and Koloi were there and I think they kind of believed that if music worked for them as blind people, who were disenfranchised, it probably should be able to work for everybody else. But it’s sad to look at people from just one dimension. He was many things.</p>
<h2>How should we remember him?</h2>
<p>I think maybe that’s how we could remember him: he was just another ordinary human being who did extraordinary things. In the way that all other great people do in this world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yonela Mnana receives funding from Arts Research in Africa and First Rand Trust Bursary.</span></em></p>We should remember him as just another ordinary human being who did extraordinary things.Yonela Mnana, PhD candidate in Music, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1531572021-01-15T13:17:39Z2021-01-15T13:17:39ZThat time private US media companies stepped in to silence the falsehoods and incitements of a major public figure … in 1938<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378853/original/file-20210114-15-1klvmrz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C6243%2C3635&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Father Coughlin's bully pulpit.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/father-charles-coughlin-delivers-a-radio-speech-circa-1930s-news-photo/96792593?adppopup=true">Fotosearch/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In speeches filled with hatred and falsehoods, a public figure attacks his enemies and calls for marches on Washington. Then, after one particularly virulent address, private media companies close down his channels of communication, prompting consternation from his supporters and calls for a code of conduct to filter out violent rhetoric. </p>
<p>Sound familiar? Well, this was 1938, and the individual in question was <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/charles-e-coughlin">Father Charles E. Coughlin</a>, a Nazi-sympathizing Catholic priest with unfettered access to America’s vast radio audiences. The firms silencing him were the broadcasters of the day. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.radford.edu/content/chbs/home/comm/faculty/bios.html#par_text_11">a media historian</a>, I find more than a little similarity between the stand those stations took back then and the way Twitter, YouTube and Facebook <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/insurrection-at-the-capitol/2021/01/12/956003580/facebook-removes-stop-the-steal-content-twitter-suspends-qanon-accounts">have silenced false claims</a> of election fraud and incitements to violence in the aftermath of the siege on the U.S. Capitol – noticeably by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/style/trump-twitter-ban.html">silencing the claims of Donald Trump</a> and his supporters. </p>
<h2>A radio ministry</h2>
<p>Coughlin’s Detroit ministry had grown up with radio, and, as his sermons grew more political, he began calling President Franklin D. Roosevelt a liar, a betrayer and a double-crosser. His fierce rhetoric fueled rallies and letter-writing campaigns for a dozen right-wing causes, from banking policy to opposing Russian communism. At the height of his popularity, an estimated <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/holocaust-coughlin/">30 million Americans</a> listened to his Sunday sermons.</p>
<p>Then, in 1938, one Sunday sermon crossed the line. On Nov. 20, he spoke to listeners on the subject of the recent antisemitic Nazi rampage in Germany <a href="https://theconversation.com/kristallnacht-80-years-on-some-reading-to-help-make-sense-of-the-most-notorious-state-sponsored-pogrom-103633">known as Kristallnacht</a> – during which mobs of Nazis burned down 267 synagogues, destroyed 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses and arrested 30,000 Jews. <a href="https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/11/12/502448492.html?pageNumber=4">Worldwide condemnation quickly followed</a>. An editorial in the St. Louis Globe, for example, stated: “We stand in horror at this outbreak of savagery.” </p>
<p>Coughlin saw things differently. He blamed Jews for their own persecution and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19376529709391688">claimed in the sermon</a> that the Nazis had actually been lenient. Only a few synagogues were burned, he lied, adding: “German citizen Jews were not molested officially in the conduct of their business.” And communists, not Jews, were the real targets of the Nazi mobs, according to Coughlin. </p>
<p>In the wake of these obvious lies, a New York radio station decided to break with Coughlin. “Your broadcast last Sunday was calculated to incite religious and racial strife in America,” said <a href="http://pdfs.jta.org/1938/1938-11-27_196.pdf">a letter from WMCA radio</a>. “When this was called to your attention in advance of your broadcast, you agreed to delete those misrepresentations which undeniably had this effect. You did not do so.” </p>
<p>Other radio stations in major cities like Chicago and Philadelphia also canceled Coughlin’s broadcasts. Neville Miller, the president of the <a href="https://www.nab.org/">National Association of Broadcasters</a> backed them up, saying that radio could not tolerate the abuse of freedom of speech. </p>
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<img alt="A demonstration near the German ocean liner SS Bremen in New York, after Hugh Wilson, the American ambassador to Germany was recalled in the wake of Kristallnacht." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378854/original/file-20210114-14-yhx11g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">New Yorkers take to the streets after Kristallnacht.</span>
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<p>Coughlin claimed that <a href="http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1938/11/28/98213278.html?pageNumber=1">he’d been misrepresented</a>, and that his intention had only been to stir sympathy for Christians persecuted by Communists. The Nazi press crowed at what they saw as American hypocrisy, saying Americans were “not allowed to hear the truth.” Meanwhile, Coughlin’s followers began <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1938/12/26/archives/fewer-coughlin-pickets-protest-at-radio-station-over-ban-is.html">showing up and protesting at radio stations</a> where his broadcasts had been cut off. </p>
<p>FDR <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZIjICgAAQBAJ&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=To+permit+radio+to+become+a+medium+for+selfish+propaganda+of+any+character+would+be+shamefully+and+wrongfully&source=bl&ots=-iH7jwypu6&sig=ACfU3U05MWEcKwfD6qCEN7XxTt-UB8YMCA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjv4pnLhJzuAhVSi1kKHeTIDZYQ6AEwAHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=To%20permit%20radio%20to%20become%20a%20medium%20for%20selfish%20propaganda%20of%20any%20character%20would%20be%20shamefully%20and%20wrongfully&f=false">anticipated the controversy</a>. “To permit radio to become a medium for selfish propaganda of any character would be shamefully and wrongfully to abuse a great agent of public service,” he said the day before the Kristallnacht sermon. “Radio broadcasting should be maintained on an equality of freedom which has been, and is, the keynote of the American press.” But Roosevelt did not want to take action. </p>
<p><a href="https://library.syr.edu/digital/guides/t/thompson_d.htm#:%7E:text=Dorothy%20Thompson%20(1893%2D1961),Herald%20Tribune%20from%201936%2D1941.">Dorothy Thompson</a>, a newspaper columnist who had been expelled from Germany by the Nazis a few years before, asked her readers: “Have you been listening to the broadcasts of Father Coughlin?” He was clearly a threat to democracy, she said, and the FCC itself should take him off the air. </p>
<h2>Sidelining Coughlin</h2>
<p>Coughlin’s radio empire continued eroding that winter and into the spring. With his pickets still protesting at radio stations, the National Association of Broadcasters <a href="https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1770&context=asc_papers">changed its code</a> to promote “fair and impartial presentation of both sides of controversial issues.” The code was originally established in 1929 to address issues like fair advertising practices. The revisions in 1939 prevented radio stations from selling air time for presentations from single speakers like<br>
Coughlin. Naturally, Coughlin claimed that his rights were being violated, even though he tried to justify his own violation of other people’s rights. </p>
<p>By the middle of the 20th century, this would become known as the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1341168">paradox of tolerance</a>. Philosophers like <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/">Karl Popper</a> and <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rawls/">John Rawls</a> would insist that, at some point, a society’s tolerance should not be allowed to threaten its own survival. </p>
<p>For Americans who were unsure of how to deal with Coughlin, the paradox was solved by the advent of World War II. In January of 1940, the <a href="https://reuther.wayne.edu/files/UP001842.pdf">FBI caught 17 of his followers</a> in a Nazi spy ring, and soon after, calls for more understanding of Nazis were flatly treasonous. </p>
<p>After the war, the idea that radio listeners should hear two sides of every controversy evolved from self-regulation by the broadcasting industry into the government’s “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-fairness-doctrine-in-one-post/2011/08/23/gIQAN8CXZJ_blog.html">Fairness Doctrine” of 1949</a>, which required broadcasters to allow responses to personal attacks and controversial opinions. It was enforced by the Federal Communications Commission and upheld in Red Lion Broadcasting v. FCC in 1969. </p>
<p>Then, with the deregulatory era of the 1980s, the Fairness Doctrine was abolished as the abundance of cable TV and radio was said to have <a href="https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/955/fairness-doctrine">“eroded” the rationale</a> for regulation. And yet, as it turned out, the expected abundance morphed into one-sided talk radio and social media echo chambers. These worked, as did Father Coughlin, to undermine tolerance and democracy. </p>
<h2>Stepping in</h2>
<p>There’s not much that separates, on the one hand, the mad fanaticism that held Jews supposedly responsible for their own persecution in 1938 and, on the other, the fevered delusion of 2020: that Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/01/13/ali-alexander-capitol-biggs-gosar/">victory was stolen</a> or that the president is on a mission to expose a <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanon-and-the-storm-of-the-u-s-capitol-the-offline-effect-of-online-conspiracy-theories-152815">satanic pedophile ring consisting of liberal politicians and media elites</a>. </p>
<p>In both cases, a relatively new medium was harnessed to inject hateful ideas into American society for political gain. And in both cases, private business had to step in when the consequences became evident.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Kovarik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Broadcasters silenced Father Charles Coughlin in 1938, just as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have shut down pro-Trump incitements to violence in 2021.Bill Kovarik, Professor of Communication, Radford UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1436112020-08-02T08:34:04Z2020-08-02T08:34:04ZHow apps on mobile phones are changing Zimbabwe’s talk radio<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/350380/original/file-20200730-17-1ol2tw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Artist Kudakwashe Chigodo poses for a portrait with his smartphone in Harare.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jekesai Njikizana/AFP/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Africa, radio still has wider geographical <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/worldradioday-why-radio-is-still-going-strong-in-africa/a-52355828">reach</a> and higher audiences than any other information and communication technology, including television and newspapers. </p>
<p>Like the rest of the world, African radio is breaking away from being an analogue communication tool that relies on top down information flows to one that relies on multiple feedback loops. The main driver of this is digital media technologies.</p>
<p>It’s a trend I examine in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13696815.2018.1551125?journalCode=cjac20">a paper</a> called Mobile Phones and a Million Chatter: Performed Inclusivity and Silenced Voices in Zimbabwean Talk Radio. I wanted to observe what is really happening at the convergence between radio, smartphones and related mobile-based applications such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter. </p>
<p>I found that apps like WhatsApp have indeed grown public discourse by connecting more voices to participate in live talkback radio – but this came with new challenges as newsrooms experience an oversupply of digital information from audiences.</p>
<h2>A radio station in Harare</h2>
<p>I set out to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13696815.2018.1551125?journalCode=cjac20">study</a> a local radio station in Harare, the capital of <a href="https://en.unesco.org/news/world-radio-day-2020-radio-and-diversity">Zimbabwe</a> through live studio ethnography and sustained interviews with radio producers and 21 audience members, the latter largely working class Harare residents. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, both producers and audiences found the convergence between radio and mobile phones is stretching out the communicative space. It allows more inclusive, seamless and real time debate between radio hosts and audiences. There was a strong feeling that radio continues to inculcate a sense of imagined community. One producer said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Because we have a dedicated mobile line for WhatsApp, our programme has grown a bit in popularity and we know some of our listeners in person. Some of them visit us during the day just to explain a point discussed in the previous show or even to give us story leads.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And one of the listeners told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I tune in to radio through my mobile phone while I am selling vegetables on the market. I know that my neighbour is listening to this show also.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Apps like WhatsApp have become so pervasive and immersed in our everyday lives that many more people can now easily communicate with larger numbers of contacts than before. In the context of live talk radio, mobile phones are allowing more people to cheaply and conveniently access studio debates.</p>
<p>Prior to the emergence of digital media technologies, land lines were expensive and not nearly as widely domesticated as mobile phones are today. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/radio-in-ghana-from-mouthpiece-of-coup-plotters-to-giving-voice-to-the-people-131709">Radio in Ghana: from mouthpiece of coup plotters to giving voice to the people</a>
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<p>By 2017, WhatApp was already by far the <a href="https://qz.com/africa/1114551/in-zimbabwe-whatsapp-takes-nearly-half-of-all-internet-traffic/">most popular</a> app in Zimbabwe. It accounts for up to 44% of all mobile internet usage in a country where 98% of all internet usage is mobile. According to Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, promotional WhatsApp and Facebook <a href="https://www.techzim.co.zw/2017/01/econet-wireless-zimbabwes-new-data-whatsapp-facebook-bundles-prices/">access bundles</a>, marketed by the country’s mobile operators, are helping drive up use of these platforms.</p>
<h2>The digital downside</h2>
<p>However, there’s also a downside to the advent of digital media technologies and digitalised newsrooms. Observing live studio shows I witnessed a number of structural constraints.</p>
<p>For example, while radio audiences may celebrate the possibilities of easily sending critical questions via WhatsApp to studio hosts, an apparently unintended consequence was that the journalist managing live studio debates struggled to read out all the messages received. The studio WhatsApp number commonly becomes congested. </p>
<p>Some messages and comments are left unread and get buried under an avalanche of newer ones popping up on the screen, in turn buried under even newer ones. Once this happens, it’s hard to tell how many quality contributions have been lost by not being read. So not all voices reaching the studio get a fair chance of being heard. </p>
<p>I call these unintended constraints, though, because they are not necessarily a result of failure by journalists and producers. They are more a technical setback in which an oversupply of information via dedicated WhatsApp lines eluded even the most astute radio presenter.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-community-radio-has-contributed-to-building-peace-a-kenyan-case-study-141622">How community radio has contributed to building peace: a Kenyan case study</a>
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<p>In addition, some messages reaching the studio WhatsApp channel were so badly typed that they would be set aside, the journalist preferring to read out only well-typed messages. Newsroom pressures and deadlines associated with broadcast media mean that there isn’t the luxury of spending too much time on one question. </p>
<p>In mass communication studies, these are seen as exclusionary practices in live radio talkback shows.</p>
<h2>Democratising the airwaves</h2>
<p>Democracy is normatively seen as thriving in environments where all voices, opinions and views across <a href="https://medium.com/center-for-media-data-and-society/radio-gains-in-diversity-in-most-of-africa-fdeb03669d08">diverse</a> population profiles are respected and given a fair chance of representation.</p>
<p>My study showed that, at least in terms of volume, the convergence between radio and mobile phones is stretching out the public sphere to accommodate more voices. </p>
<p>Digital technologies are allowing for new participants to engage actively with radio.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143611/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stanley Tsarwe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Apps like WhatsApp have connected more voices to participate in live talk radio - but this comes with new challenges.Stanley Tsarwe, Journalism Lecturer, University of ZimbabweLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.