Indigenous Language Media, Language Politics and Democracy in Africa

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Indigenous Language Media, Language Politics and Democracy in Africa

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Indigenous Language Media, Language Politics and Democracy in Africa Edited by

Abiodun Salawu North-West University, South Africa

and

Monica B. Chibita Uganda Christian University, Uganda

Introduction, selection and editorial matter © Abiodun Salawu and Monica B. Chibita 2016 Foreword © Tawana Kupe 2016 Individual chapters © Respective authors 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-54730-9 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-56340-1 DOI 10.1057/9781137547309

ISBN 978-1-137-54730-9 (eBook)

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Indigenous language media, language politics and democracy in Africa / Abiodun Salawu, North-West University, South Africa ; Monica B. Chibita, Uganda Christian University, Uganda, [editors]. pages cm Includes bibliographical references. 1. Mass media and language—Africa, Sub-Saharan. 2. Mass media— Africa, Sub-Saharan—History—20th century. 3. Local mass media— Africa, Sub-Saharan—History—20th century. 4. Mass media—Political aspects—Africa, Sub-Saharan. 5. Indigenous peoples—Africa, SubSaharan—Communication. I. Chibita, Monica Balya, editor. II. Salawu, Abiodun, editor. III. Title. P96.L342A35749 2015 306.44'967—dc23 2015023415 Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.

Contents List of Figures and Tables

vii

Foreword by Tawana Kupe

viii

Acknowledgements

x

Notes on Contributors

xi

Introduction: Language, Structure and Agency: Optimising Media Diversity in Africa Using the Indigenous Languages Monica B. Chibita and Abiodun Salawu

1

Part I Indigenous Languages, Media and Democracy in Africa 1 Indigenous Language Media and Democracy in Africa Abiodun Salawu 2 Indigenous Language Media and Freedom of Expression in Uganda Monica B. Chibita

13

28

Part II The Media, Language, Inclusion and Exclusion in Africa 3 IsiZulu Language and the Ilanga Newspaper as Catalysts for Participatory Democracy in South Africa Thabisile Buthelezi

59

4 The Return of the Local: Community Radio as Dialogic and Participatory Brilliant Mhlanga

87

5 “Englishisation” of the World Wide Web: Implications for Indigenous Languages in Nigeria Chimaobi Dick Onwukwe and Uzoma Chukwuemeka Okugo

113

6 Indigenous Language Broadcasting in Ghana: Retrospect and Prospect Ufuoma Akpojivi and Modestus Fosu

121

v

vi

Contents

Part III The Indigenous Language Media in Political and Cultural Expression in Africa 7

8

9

10

Indigenous Language Radio in Kenya and the Negotiation of Inter-Group Relations during Conflict Processes Philip Oburu

153

Mobilising Nigerians towards a National Population Census: The Role of Indigenous Language Media Oloruntola Sunday

182

The Dynamics of Language Politics in Religious Expression in African Indigenous Churches Itohan Mercy Idumwonyi and Ijeweimen Solomon Ikhidero

195

Poverty, Prophets and Politics: ‘Marxist’ Discourses in Malawi Music, 1994–2012 John Lwanda

211

Index

235

List of Figures and Tables Figures 7.1 7.2

Changes in indigenous radio frames and attitudinal shifts in conflict processes

173

Elasticity of indigenous radio frames during conflict processes

176

Tables 6.1

The political regimes of Ghana from independence to date

125

6.2

List of some radio stations that broadcast in indigenous languages in Ghana

139

6.3

Peace FM programme schedule

140

6.4

Programmes aired in indigenous languages and most likely to be listened to

143

vii

Foreword This volume on indigenous language media, language politics and democracy is an invaluable contribution to the growing literature on African media and critical media studies as a field of inquiry in Africa. Indigenous language media and the dynamics of the role of the media in democratization have been largely neglected in studies of the media in Africa, which has had a bias towards studying privately owned print media and the emergence of privately owned FM radio stations that coincided with the ‘democratization era’ of the late 1980s and 1990s. In this phase the focus was on how privately owned media and the FM radio stations that emerged from the ‘liberalization of the airwaves’ provided voices for a range of democratic actors, from opposition movements preaching a gospel of multi-party democracy to civil society organizations focused on human and women’s rights, the youth and economic actors wanting free-market policies that had been shut out of state-owned and/or controlled media. Mediation of opposition discourses was the focus if not the obsession. Analysis of language was ignored and by default the language(s) of mediation were assumed to be English or European languages like French. Mainstream print and broadcast media were also the mediums receiving the most analytical attention. What this volume does is to shine a critical analytical focus on indigenous languages, which are the languages spoken by most people even if they might not be used by most of the mainstream media in those genres that explicitly deal with issues of democratic politics. Ironically, indigenous languages often reach the largest audiences in broadcast space. The volume is rich because it covers different mediums – from print media through different forms of radio to emergent online media – as well as a range of African countries including those with large populations, like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, and small countries like Malawi; it also covers community media and not just the mainstream media. In this regard, the book demonstrates that even though Africa is a continent with over 50 countries, there is merit in producing a volume that investigates trends, patterns and developments that are comparable. viii

Foreword

ix

The book is invaluable because it does not romanticize or shy away from the complexities and dynamics of the use of indigenous languages across different mediums, which can both promote democratic discourses and also mediate discourses that promote genocide (as happened in Rwanda in the early 1990s or inter-ethnic conflict in the case of Kenya). The focus on appropriation of indigenous languages in the commercial media domain and discourses is an interesting departure from an approach that can tie indigenous languages to a burden of maintaining ethnic identities and reminiscing about an African past, into an exploration of the dynamism of languages and their deployment in ever-changing political, commercial and technological environments as well identities that are in a state of flux in Africa. This volume will contribute to the ongoing creation of a distinct tradition of African media studies and the de-Westernization of media studies globally. Professor Tawana Kupe, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa

Acknowledgements We are grateful to the contributors and thank them for their confidence in us. We also thank them for their patience, since this project started in 2012. We thank all the organisations whose platforms we used to make the Call for Chapters. These include the South African Communication Association, the International Association for Media and Communication Research and the Nigeria Chapter of the African Council for Communication Education. We also thank every colleague who assisted us in reviewing the papers we received in response to our call. We acknowledge Tawana Kupe, Associate Professor of Media Studies and currently Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Advancement, HR and Transformation) at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, who wrote the Foreword. We also thank our friends Felicity Plester and Sneha Kamat Bhavnani at Palgrave Macmillan and Geetha Williams at MPS Limited for their support in the course of publishing the book. The National Research Foundation (of South Africa) is acknowledged for providing Abiodun with a Knowledge, Interchange and Collaboration (KIC) grant for Africa Interaction. This enabled him to visit the Uganda Christian University in Mukono in 2014 in furtherance of the collaboration between him and Monica on the project. There are many other people we are indebted to, who are closely or remotely connected to this project. We are grateful for being able to forge a partnership with all of you that has resulted in this volume. Thank you all. Abiodun, Mafikeng, South Africa Monica, Mukono, Uganda

x

Notes on Contributors Ufuoma Akpojivi is a lecturer in the Media Studies Department, School of Literature, Language and Media, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His research interests are in the areas of citizenship, new media and political participation, media policy, journalism ethics and practices in Africa, media and democratization processes in emerging democracies, amongst others. Thabisile Buthelezi is an associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in the Language and Arts Cluster of the School of Education. She is a qualified teacher, nurse and practitioner in adult basic education and training. She has vast experience in teacher education. She teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises postgraduate research at all levels. She is a recognised scholar and a researcher rated by the South African National Research Foundation. Her research interests are in the areas of African languages, language education, curriculum studies, sexuality education, HIV and AIDS in curricula and indigenous knowledge systems. Monica B. Chibita is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Mass Communication at Uganda Christian University. She has also taught at Makerere University. She is a member of the editorial/advisory board of several refereed academic journals. Her research and publications have been in the areas of media and democracy with a focus on broadcast media regulation, indigenous language media and media curriculum and training. Modestus Fosu is a lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Accra. His research interests include the language of news, news readability and comprehension, media and journalism education, media and society in Ghana, and similar socio-political societies. Itohan Mercy Idumwonyi is a university lecturer at the University of Benin, Nigeria and a doctoral student at Rice University, Houston, US. Her research interests encompass women and gender studies, African religions, and African Christianity and Pentecostalism with an emphasis on women and gender dynamics in Nigerian Pentecostalism and Benin religion. She has had articles published on culture, gender xi

xii

Notes on Contributors

and African religions. Her work has appeared in Orita: Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies and African Journal of Legal Studies. She is a fellow of the prestigious American Association of University Women (AAUW) and the Forum for Theological Exploration. Ijeweimen Solomon Ikhidero is a researcher who holds an MA in African religion. His research interest revolves around the re-awakening of African value systems in the modern world. His work has been published in the Ilorin Journal of Religious Studies. He is the author of The Matrimonial Oath of Fidelity among the Benin of Southern Nigeria: Its Ethical Implications for Postcolonial Nigeria (2014). John Lwanda has lived in Zimbabwe, Malawi and Scotland. A  physician and social historian, his research interests include collecting, archiving and recording popular and traditional music. His PhD examined culture, politics and medicine with reference to HIV/AIDS in Malawi. His books include: Kamuzu Banda of Malawi (2010), Politics, Culture and Medicine in Malawi (2005), Music, Culture and Orature: The Malawi Public Sphere, 1949–2006 (2008), and Promises, Power Politics and Poverty: Democratic Transition in Malawi, 1961–1999 (forthcoming, 2015). He has contributed book chapters, including ‘Politics, Culture and Medicine: An Unholy Trinity?’ in Kalipeni et al. (eds) HIV/AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology (2004), as well as a variety of academic and scholarly papers. Brilliant Mhlanga holds a PhD from the University of Westminster, London, UK. He is a member of the Mass Communications Group and Lecturer in Media Cultures at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. He remains affiliated to the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Zimbabwe. He is working on a number of projects including a book titled Bondage of Boundaries and the ‘Toxic Other’ in Postcolonial Africa: The Northern Problem and Identity Politics Today and another project, provisionally titled ‘On the Banality of Evil: Cultural Particularities and Genocide in Africa’. His research interests include media and development communication, community radio, ethnic minority media, ethnicity, nationalism and postcolonial studies, and the media policies and political economy of the media. Uzoma Chukwuemeka Okugo is an associate professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Abia State University, Nigeria. He holds a doctorate in Mass Communication. His areas of interest include media theories, effects and radio/TV production. He is

Notes on Contributors xiii

a renowned and prolific scholar, with well over 50 international and local publications, and is a member of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE). Philip Oburu is Assistant Professor in the School of Social Communication at Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada. His research revolves around interactive digital media and social activism in transitional democracies, including the roles of media in conflict transformation and humanitarian intervention. Chimaobi Dick Onwukwe is a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Communication Studies/Igbo at Abia State University, Nigeria. He is a doctoral candidate in the same department. His work is widely published in the fields of both linguistics and communication. He is a member of the African Council for Communication Education (ACCE) and the Linguistics Association of Nigeria (LAN). Abiodun Salawu is Professor of Journalism, Communication and Media Studies at North-West University, South Africa. His writing on the subject of African language media has been widely published. He edited the seminal book Indigenous Language Media in Africa (2006). Oloruntola Sunday is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, University of Lagos, Nigeria. He holds a PhD in agricultural communication from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria, and a BSc and MSc in communication from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He worked as a reporter and production sub-editor in different media houses in Nigeria before becoming an academic. He has a number of published local and international articles to his credit. His areas of interest include the ethics of mass communication, editorial writing and theories of mass communication. He is also interested in print and Development Journalism, conflict transformation and humanitarian intervention.

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