‘Pirate’ radio, convergence and reception in Zimbabwe

Telematics and Informatics 30 (2013) 232–241

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‘Pirate’ radio, convergence and reception in Zimbabwe q Hayes Mawindi Mabweazara ⇑ School of Media and Performance, University College Falmouth, Tremough Campus, Penryn TR11 9EZ, UK

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Article history: Available online 21 March 2012 Keywords: Pirate radio Convergence Internet Mobile phone Reception Oral tradition SW Radio Africa Studio 7 SMS Zimbabwe

a b s t r a c t Using a qualitative research approach, this study examines the appropriation of digital technologies and their implications for the reception of the so-called ‘pirate’ radio in Zimbabwe. It specifically explores how the use of the Internet (and its associated digital technologies), including the mobile phone by two prominent ‘underground’ radio stations, Short Wave (SW) Radio Africa and Voice of America’s Studio 7, beaming into Zimbabwe from the UK and the US, respectively, has impacted on the reception of their content. Drawing on reception theory, the paper highlights the ambiguities and complexities associated with the reception of (pirate) radio in the era of convergence in Africa. It argues that while both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7’s multiple digital transmission strategies have broadened the range of options available for the reception of their content (albeit in disproportionate ways), traditional forms of reception remain in force. This is largely because of enduring questions of access to digital technologies (especially the Internet), and the lasting connections between traditional live radio and the oral traditions of local culture. These contextual factors sustain reception practices that differ markedly from the scenario in the economically developed world of the North where digital technologies have radically redefined radio reception practices. Similarly, the mobile phone has expanded options for the generation and reception of news content from the radio stations thus pointing to the fact that in Africa convergence can indeed assume unique forms, shaped by an intricate combination of local socio-economic and cultural factors. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Although new digital technologies are redefining communication everywhere, across Africa there is consensus among researchers that radio remains by far the most powerful tool of communication (Daloz and Verrier-Frechette, 2000; Moyo, 2010). Kalyango (2011, p. 119) observes that ‘radio has been the dominant medium, as well as the most accessible source of public affairs information and news’. Similarly, van der Veur notes that radio has ‘continued to grow in [. . .] significance as a prime medium for defending and promoting a wide range of [. . .] projects or programmes. Many of these [. . .] pursued in the name of democracy’ (2007, p. 88–89). Developments in digital technologies have further expanded the range of options for radio programming and reception, with most scholars arguing that the newfound ability to listen to audio streamed over the Internet and the advent of podcasting, offering programming on demand have redefined radio consumption practices (Barker, 2009).

q This study was completed thanks to a research grant awarded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Transitional Societies (CMTS) at Carleton University, Canada. ⇑ Tel.: +44 1326 211077; fax: +44 1326 370400; mobile: +44 7552 732847. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected]

0736-5853/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2012.02.007

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Against this backdrop, the present study examines the reception of two prominent ‘pirate’ radio stations, Short Wave (SW) Radio Africa and Voice of America’s Studio 7, in Zimbabwe’s three major cities – Harare (the largest city and capital with an estimated population of 1 606 000), Bulawayo (the second largest city located about 439 kilometres southwest of Harare and with an estimated population of about 731 003) and Gweru (located in the midlands and has an estimated population of 146 073, making it the fifth largest city in the country). Although the country has endured a lengthy period of underinvestment as a result of a protracted political and economic crisis, these three cities have a relatively reliable telecommunications infrastructure that has enabled good Internet connectivity and mobile phone coverage. The growing demand for Internet services, in particular, has been shown by the rise in the number of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the mushrooming of cybercafés in almost every corner of these cities. For example, in 2004 Harare alone ‘had about 30 Internet cafes and [by] 2008 they were estimated to have doubled [in] number’ (Chari, 2009: 13). Short Wave (SW) Radio Africa and Voice of America’s Studio 7 respectively beam into Zimbabwe from the United States of America and the United Kingdom via Shortwave/Medium Wave1, the Internet and mobile phones. Although these radio stations are widely known to be popular sources of news in Zimbabwe, the ‘underground’ nature of their operations as well as their consumption, makes it difficult to measure their audience ratings, especially through ‘official’ audience survey channels such as the Zimbabwe All Media and Products Survey (ZAMPS) ratings. The radio stations emerged as direct responses to the state’s monopoly in broadcasting as well as increased political and ideological control of programming in the country’s broadcasting services (Moyo, 2010). Following the government’s onslaught on the media and negative responses to calls for the liberalisation of the broadcast sector2, a number of Zimbabwean journalists migrated to countries such as South Africa, the UK and the US where they joined Zimbabweans masses pushed into the diaspora by the deteriorating political and economic conditions. Keen to rekindle their careers, ‘some of these journalists set up news websites, radio stations and even newspapers that served as alternative voices on Zimbabwe’ (Moyo, 2010, p. 25). SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 emerged from these developments and promptly positioned themselves as challenging government’s monopoly over the country’s communicative space (Batist, 2010). Predictably, the radio stations have faced radical criticism from ZANU PF party leaders who have described them as ‘unauthorised and [. . .] unlicensed’ (Keith, 2007, p. 534) ‘pirate’ stations illegally broadcasting into Zimbabwe’s media space ‘with the intention of expressing discontent with the political status quo’ (Wachanga, 2007, p. 10). However, contemporary developments show that the scope of these so-called pirate radio stations is now much wider and pervasive than is implied by ‘authorisation’ and the ‘issuance of license’. Traditionally located outside the political jurisdiction of the countries into which they beam their signals, they are also variously known as ‘clandestine’, ‘underground’ or ‘exiled’ radio stations (see van der Veur, 2007; Wachanga, 2007; Moyo, 2010; Batist, 2010). Although all these terms can be used to describe both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7, the present study deploys the term ‘pirate’ radio, which has been widely used as an expression of contempt by ZANU PF, which has invested in technology to jam the stations’ shortwave transmission signals consequently forcing them to devise ways of stifling the jamming efforts, including persistently shifting their shortwave frequencies. The radio stations have also resorted to the use of a variety of alternative transmission strategies as ways of widening the reach of their content. In particular, they have leveraged their operations on new digital technologies such as the Internet and the mobile phone. They have also set up interactive news websites on which they post news bulletins as well as offer programming on demand through podcasting and live audio streaming. In addition, all news and current affairs programmes are archived and available for download from the stations’ websites. The radio stations’ websites have become one of the main avenues through which they interact and engage with their audiences. Similarly, contact with audiences is sought and triggered through social networking sites such as Facebook. It is this investment in the promise of new digital technologies that makes the radio stations a significant case study for the present research.3 The mobile phone has also assumed a central place in the operations of the radio stations. Apart from the fact that it does not require a lot of money or electricity (other than charging the battery every now and again), it is an ideal way to get around government censorship in Zimbabwe. Both stations see the short message service (SMS) as one of the most direct ways of building and informing their audience. The creative appropriation of the SMS technology to disseminate news headlines to subscribers scattered across the globe (free of charge), is seen as strategic in the operations of both stations. Similarly, much of the radio stations’ newsgathering is mediated through the mobile phone. Although the mobile phone business is growing in Zimbabwe4, as it is doing across Africa, local factors are contributing to the increase in its reach and use (Mabweazara, 2011). For example, the collapsed landline network and limited access to public phones makes the technology a useful communication tool. A further advantage with the mobile phone is that even communities in very remote areas have access to the technology, although they will not be able to use it to call and send out messages themselves, they still can receive them (Batist, 2010; Mabweazara, 2011). 1 SW Radio Africa broadcasts 2 h a day between 6 and 8 pm on Shortwave and Studio 7 broadcasts live between 7 and 8:30 pm on Shortwave and Medium Wave. 2 Although a coalition government between the main opposition political party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and the Zimbabwe African National Union: Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) came into place in February 2009, the ZANU PF led government prior to this arrangement effected most of the unsettling changes to the country’s media landscape. Thus, the term ‘government’ in this study is used to refer to the ZANU PF dispensation. 3 By a wide margin, these radio stations have the most advanced radio production technologies when compared to the dominant state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s four radio stations that are still heavily reliant on out-dated analogue production facilities. 4 The rise in the number of mobile phone users is partly reflected in the rapid growth of its penetration rate in recent years. For instance, between February 2009 and November 2011, the penetration rate rose sharply from 14 percent to 59 percent (NewsDay, November 25, 2011).

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These multiple digital transmission strategies pose a serious dilemma to government, which has increasingly found it difficult to suppress and control them. As Thierer points out, technological convergence has put ‘formerly distinct sectors and their regulatory regimes on [. . .] a collision course’ (2005, p. 7). Writing about SW Radio Africa and Studio 7, Mavhunga contends that they provide a good example of the way the Internet ‘has brought together print and audio into a diverse bouquet of weapons giving birth to the cyber-guerrilla’ (2008, p. 21). The digital technologies have thus broken the boundaries of traditional pirate radio, radically transforming it from a monomodal channel to a multimodal ‘revolutionary’ communication platform whose transmissions straddle social and ‘access’ divides in Zimbabwe. These developments not only illustrate the renewed transnational power of radio, but also reinforce what Hilmes and Loviglio describe as ‘the medium’s transgressive power’ (2002, p. xiii), which limits the ability of governments to totally restrict the flow of news and other forms of information. It is in this light that Spinelli contends that Internet mediated radio is: ‘instilled with hopes of initiating utopian democracy, providing for universal and equal education’ (1996, p. 1). Similarly, van der Veur posits that as a result of the emergence and proliferation of new digital technologies which offer alternatives for the transmission of radio content: ‘Radio has continued to grow in [. . .] significance as a prime medium for defending and promoting a wide range of [. . .] projects or programmes’ (2007, p. 88–89). According to Livingstone (1999, p. 64): ‘empirical research on audiences is ever more important [. . .] researchers must strive towards understanding how audiences play a role in both the social shaping of technologies and their appropriation, consumption and impact’. This study builds from Livingstone’s call for more empirically grounded research on new media audiences to explore the reception patterns and practices of a new ‘breed of clandestine radio stations’ (Moyo, 2010, p. 26). It closely examines the appropriations of the radio stations’ multiple platform digital transmission strategies in the reception and consumption of their news content. The study is thus an attempt to contribute an African, specifically Zimbabwean, perspective on radio reception practices in the new digital era.

2. Theoretical approach In this study, I draw on the ‘active audience tradition’ of reception theory, which emphasises the ‘ways in which the haphazard and contingent details of people’s daily lives provide the context in which media are engaged with and responded to’ (Livingstone, 1998). Through emphasising the ‘interpretive relations between audience and medium’ (ibid), this body of theory has served to reinvigorate theoretical as well as political discussions on the issue of ‘impact’, raised by the early traditions of audience research. Its starting point is that the meaning or ‘impact’ of media texts is not something fixed, or inherent, within the text. Rather, media texts acquire meaning only at the moment of reception, that is, audiences are seen as producers of meaning, not just consumers of media content. They decode or interpret media texts in ways that are related to their social and cultural circumstances and to the way in which they subjectively experience those circumstances (Ang, 1990). In support of this view, Ruddock (2001) argues that communication is culturally specific and as such can only be understood as a process from the point of view of the people involved. In general, therefore, reception researchers aim to uncover how people in their own social and historical contexts make sense of media texts in ways that are meaningful, suitable, and accessible to them. Reception research can thus be seen as a cross-fertilisation project, attempting to borrow from its predecessors. Its basic tenet is that meaning is never just transferred from the media to their audiences. Rather, meaning is generated according to the communicative repertoires, or codes of the encorder(s). Moreover, media/audience meaning processes are firmly embedded in the social contexts of everyday life (Ang, 1990). Reception analysis is thus interested in social meanings, that is, meanings that are culturally shared. Ang (1990) observes that some reception researchers have used terms such as ‘interpretive communities’ and ‘subcultures’ to denote groups of people who make common interpretations of media texts. Such groups of people do not have to be physically united in one location, but can be geographically dispersed and can consist of many different kinds of people who do not know each other but are symbolically connected by their shared interest in particular media. In the same vein, Jensen (1988, p. 4) notes that ‘the central locus of analysis is the interface between medium and audience, and the interface itself is a social form rather than a direct consequence of the specific technology’. Reception analysis therefore makes it clear that an interdependent relationship exists between audiences and media texts. Although some researchers contend that new digital technologies have rendered ‘the concept of the audience’ obsolete in audience research (Livingstone, 2004), there are significant insights to be gleaned from traditional communication research ‘which can guide the analysis of the new media environment’ (Livingstone, 2004, p. 76). Even though the broader conceptualisation of the ‘active audience’ tradition associated with reception theory took shape well before the ‘new media era’, it retains its relevance as a tool for closely examining media reception and consumption in the digital era. Its constructivist thrust accommodates the radical changes to the concept of the audience emerging with the interactivity of digital technologies. The explicit emphasis on users’ active engagement in the generation of content emerging with digital technologies: ‘crucially extends the scope and importance of arguments in ‘‘active audience’’ theory by transforming hitherto marginal (and marginalised) tendencies into the very mainstream of media use’ (Livingstone, 2004, p. 79). It has to be noted, however, that in drawing on the ‘active audience’ tradition, I am less interested in how the radio stations’ audiences are fashioning a sense of identity in relation to their consumption of content from the stations, than in how converged media are implicated in the broader socio-cultural context that shapes and constrains the reception of media

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texts. Because audiences and users of new media ‘are increasingly active–selective, self-directed, producers as well as receivers of texts’ (Livingstone, 2004, p. 79), the new media environment can be seen as extending the scope and importance of arguments in the ‘active audience’ tradition (Livingstone, 2004). Reception theory thus sensitises us to the importance of viewing technologies ‘in social rather than purely technical terms’ (Livingstone, 2002, p. 19). It enables us to see technologies as acquiring ‘meanings in the heterogeneity of social interactions’ (Bijker, 1995, p. 6), as well as their capacities and what they can do, as a site for interpretive work equally open to qualitative or interpretive investigations. 3. Methodology To generate empirical data for the study, I conducted in-depth interviews with 24 participants selected from three major cities in Zimbabwe: Bulawayo (the second largest city, located in the south western part of the country), Gweru (located in the midlands), and Harare (the capital). Given the risks associated with listening to underground radio stations in Zimbabwe5, participants in the study were purposively selected using convenience and snowball sampling. I initiated the study by approaching individuals I knew to be avid listeners of both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7.6 These were drawn from a combination of personal contacts as well as from a network of active listeners provided by the stations. These contacts, in turn, assisted in the recruitment of other listeners from their acquaintances. This approach finds support in Ruddock’s (2001) view that guidelines for sampling within qualitative audience research are more flexible and situational. While every effort was made to ensure balance in terms of age, occupation/class status and gender dynamics in selecting participants for the study, a number of individuals, especially females declined to be interviewed (even when guaranteed anonymity). Consequently, of the 24 participants in the study only 6 were females: 4 in Harare and 2 from Gweru and Bulawayo. Overall, the participants were aged between 26 and 54 years old with diverse class status and professional backgrounds. These included: legal practitioners, civil society activists, teachers, nurses, self-employed vegetable vendors, university students, bankers and taxi drivers. The interviews were conducted between November 2010 and January 2011 as follows: Bulawayo (8 participants); Gweru (6 participants); Harare (10 participants). The challenges of identifying candidates for the study granted, questions on the representativeness of the number of interviewees sampled for the research (24 participants) may arise. However, the primary aim of this study was to understand particulars about the appropriations of digital technologies in the reception pirate radio content rather than generalising to universals in keeping with the central assumptions of qualitative research. As Maxwell observes qualitative studies are usually not designed to allow systematic generalisations to some wider population, rather generalisation ‘usually takes place through the development of a theory that not only makes sense of particular persons or situations studied, but also shows how the same process in different situations, can lead to different results’ (Maxwell, 1992, p. 293). The next section introduces the study’s findings by giving a general overview of the dynamics in the appropriation of new digital technologies in the reception and consumption of news content from both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7. 4. Convergence and the reception of pirate radio news As already noted, both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7’s shortwave broadcasts are complemented by the radio stations’ appropriation of the Internet and the mobile phone as alternative news transmission platforms. While the Internet is considered ‘the most dominant platform of convergence for the radio’ (Mudhai, 2011, p. 263), the mobile phone is the most pervasive manifestation of the new media in Africa (Mabweazara, 2011), with significant implications for the reception of radio content. Although at the surface, the use of digital platforms reflects a broadened scope of the context for reception, this study shows that the digital transmission platforms associated with the Internet (the station’s websites; podcasts; social networking sites, email and live streaming) are mainly used by an ‘elite’ group of audiences with regular and unrestricted Internet access. The disparities in ‘access’ were also manifest in the disproportionate abilities to effectively exploit the multiple digital platforms for the reception of news content from the two pirate radio stations. Consequently, the potential empowering effects that follow from the use of the Internet to access content from both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 are selective and confined to an elite group. On the other hand, widespread access to mobile phones across social classes has facilitated expansive distribution of the radio stations’ news content. Collectively, these digital technologies can be seen as breaking the boundaries of traditional pirate radio; transforming it into an alternative multi-layered assemblage of platforms whose transmissions straddle social divides (I explore this point in greater detail below.). However, it is important to reiterate the fact that the reception of news content from both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 is rather complex and multifaceted. Overall, the study finds that traditional live radio remains the main conduit for accessing content from the two stations examined here. The popularity of live shortwave radio not only demonstrates the intricacies of the socio-economic context in which clandestine radio is consumed, but the very peculiarities of the socio-political, economic and cultural realities in 5 There have been many reports of ZANU-PF militias destroying or confiscating the radio sets of people known to tune to pirate radio stations (I return to this point shortly.). 6 Although each of these stations is unique in terms of operational structures and editorial thrust, the ‘alternative nature’ of their programming attracts listeners with ‘shared’ media content preferences. It is not unusual therefore to find listeners who avidly follow news and current affairs programmes from both stations, as was the case with most of the interviewees selected for this study.

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which radio, and indeed, digital technologies, in general, are used in Zimbabwe. Thus, rather than see the changes ushered by digital technologies to the reception of pirate radio as displacing old practices, we need to see the transformations as ‘evidence of an ecological reconfiguration’ (Gurevitch et al., 2009, p. 167), taking place alongside traditional reception practices. Fundamental to the traditional forms of reception, is a pervasive oral communication tradition, which contributes significantly to the impact of radio on the African continent. Therefore, in examining the appropriation of digital technologies in the reception of underground radio in Zimbabwe, it is important to consider the shaping impact of the socio-cultural context inhabited by the audiences. This approach enables us to ‘closely examine the multidimensional factors that shape and constrain the use of technologies by those with only limited access, as well as those who are unable to effectively use them, a scenario broadly prevalent in most African countries’ (Mabweazara, 2010, p. 17). The rest of the article is divided into four parts. The first part focuses on the appropriations of the radio station’s webbased technologies in the reception and consumption of their content; the second part examines how the mobile phone is widening as well as reformulating pirate radio reception practices; the third section discusses how the traditional forms of reception remain in force despite the reconfigurations emerging with new digital technologies. The article concludes with a reflective overview of the study’s findings.

5. Pirate radio on the web: possibilities and challenges for audiences Despite the limitations of access to the Internet, SW Radio Africa and Studio 7’s websites were seen as complementing traditional live broadcasts by providing alternative access to news content, particularly in situations where circumstances made it difficult for one to listen to live broadcasts. As one Harare-based interviewee explained: ‘My father supports ZANU-PF, he does not tolerate anything inclined to the opposition [...], including news from SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 [. . .]. This poses problems at home, so I rely on the stations’ websites, which I access at work [. . .]’. Reinforcing the expediency and flexibility engendered by the radio stations’ websites one legal practitioner in Gweru stated: Because of competing work commitments, I sometimes miss the live broadcasts [...]. Many times, I simply log onto the stations’ websites for summaries of the previous day’s news broadcasts. It is less time consuming and I do not necessarily have to shift my work schedule to fit into the radio stations’ rigid regime of evening broadcasts. In other words, I do not have to be at home by 7 pm everyday [. . .]. These uses of the radio stations’ websites highlight the emancipatory potential of the Internet, which in this case, provides citizens with an alternative virtual space for accessing news from the radio stations ‘on demand’. The varying conveniences and flexible access to pirate radio news offered by the Internet highlights the fact that: ‘the meaning of a particular technology is not pre-given but constructed as the technology figures in practices of consumption and becomes embedded in everyday life’ (Silverstone and Hirsch in Spitulnick, 2000, p. 146). This ‘social shaping’ conception of the radio station’s websites also draws attention to the more general question about how communication technologies are understood as continuous with and embedded in existing social realities and dynamics. As Spitulnick (2000, p. 145) writes: ‘the impact of a media technology changes with both its context and the activities that accompany it’. Thus, as Mudhai (2011, p. 153) puts it: ‘although radio’s survival as a major cultural phenomenon may appear to be under threat from new media technologies [...], convergence [only] makes it possible for it to remain a significant arena of information dissemination’. From the above uses of the stations’ websites one may argue that the Internet has redefined pirate radio into a far more pervasive and accessible form of ‘online’ journalism. The interactivity of the stations’ websites was also described as central to the reconfiguration of the reception of their news content. For the users of the stations’ websites, this interactivity provided one of the main avenues for engaging directly with radio programming. The opportunity to comment on stories and (indirectly) contribute to the generation of news content has turned the radio stations into socially engaging ‘communal’ forms of journalism, which as one respondent put it: ‘represents [their] own interests, ideas, observations and opinions’ (emphasis added). The stations’ websites have therefore pushed the boundaries of pirate radio, turning it into an open and ongoing collaborative ‘socio-political experiment’ that challenges ‘the gate-keeping monopoly once enjoyed by editors’ (Gurevitch et al., 2009, p. 167). While never merely passive recipients, the users of the radio stations’ websites interviewed for this study are becoming active, selective and self-directed participants as well as addressees of the stations’ mass circulating messages (Livingstone, 2004). The Internet has thus broken the boundaries of traditional pirate radio, as we have known it, transforming it from a routinely centralised monomodal news outlet into a pluralised alternative form of communication. It is important, however, to highlight that the profound ‘changes’ to the reception of SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 emerging with the appropriation of new digital technologies, are taking place alongside the continued traditional forms of (pirate) radio consumption. In this sense, they only mirror an ecological recasting of the platforms through which the stations have traditionally transmitted their content, rather than introducing entirely new forces that radically break from old ways (I return to this point below). Highlighting this point with respect to daily email news alerts circulated by both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7, one Gweru based interviewee stated: ‘When I receive email alerts from the radio stations, I simply go through the headlines [. . .] and await the detailed stories in the evening’s live broadcasts’. This trend in the use of email also characterised the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, which, as noted earlier, the radio stations appropriate to mobilise a committed base of audience members. A number of interviewees described the sites as useful in alerting them to topical programmes on the radio stations. As one university student in Harare explained:

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Studio 7 has a Facebook page called ‘Live Talk’, which previews and reviews the live radio programme [...] I find this helpful in giving hints on what to anticipate on the actual live programme. Comments by other followers of the programme are also very interesting [. . .] (emphasis added). For some respondents social networking sites were useful in circulating and continuing political discourses generated by the radio stations. A number of interviewees pointed to the interactive and viral energy of Facebook, which they described as amounting to a new flow of incessantly circulating publicity. This point was emphasised by a civil society activist in Bulawayo who stated: ‘messages are debated, rumours floated, tested, and even discarded’. Highlighting the significance of this function of social media in the consumption of radio content, Mudhai (2011, p. 153) observes that social networking sites have rekindled radio culture in Africa as erstwhile rare audience participation has become common. 6. Challenges of access Accessing pirate radio content from the Internet was not without challenges. A number of participants pointed to the persistent structural problem of Internet connectivity and other inhibiting economic conditions. As a banker in Harare put it: ‘[. . .] the problem is that we are not yet technologically advanced to download and listen to a whole programme on the Web without any hitches [. . .]. The Internet connection at my workplace can sometimes be so dispiritingly slow’. Similarly, a Gweru based teacher stated: ‘We have Internet access at my school but the problem is that it is too slow – it takes ages to open a single website, probably because the computers we use are also very old’. These challenges highlight the significance of the popular ‘technicist’ understanding of the digital divide. As van Dijk (2005, p. 49) puts it: ‘physical and conditional access [. . .] make a tremendous difference to the potential application and the level of inequality between users’ of digital technologies. This has prompted some writers to surmise that while future developments in the convergence of radio are exciting: ‘Internet based radio, pod casting and ‘‘any time any place’’ radio listening via mobile devices such as MP3 players are some way off [in Africa]’ (Myers, 2008). For some interviewees, limited economic power made it a matter of hard choice to use the Internet in public access points such as Internet cafes, hence preventing them from taking full advantage of the stations’ web-based transmission platforms. As one vegetable vendor in Bulawayo pointed out: ‘To be honest with you, I only listen to these radio stations in the evening at home. I know very little about the Internet etcetera [. . .], Besides, I cannot afford the costs involved in using Internet cafes’ (emphasis added). This response reinforces Hambuba’s (2010, p. 138) observation that most people in Africa, particularly women: ‘face the dilemma of choosing whether to spend their money on use of ICTs or to buy food for their families and meet other very basic needs of survival’. However, while ‘access’ challenges were predominantly defined in terms of well-known physical and economic conditions, a number of interviewees pointed to the fears associated with using public Internet cafes to browse content from both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7. As one teacher in Bulawayo explained: ‘[. . .] Because I mainly use the Internet in public cafés [. . .], I’m not sure if I’m prepared to take the risk of being seen browsing such websites in public [. . .], you’re never sure who is behind you’ (emphasis added). This underscores Moyo (2010, p. 28) observation that ‘[i]n repressive environments, listening to clandestine radio is illegal’. As noted earlier, in Zimbabwe the government has reportedly confiscated radio sets from people believed to be followers of ‘offensive’ broadcasts from the pirate stations.7 These actions inevitably drive listeners of the radio stations ‘underground’ (Moyo, 2010). These challenges not only highlight the complex and multifaceted nature of the digital divide in Zimbabwe, but also point to the contingent and ambiguous nature of (pirate) radio reception in the digital era. They further provide evidence for the need ‘to reframe the overly technical concept of the digital divide’ (van Dijk, 2006, p. 223) by paying more attention to social, physiological, cultural and political influences to the adoption and use of digital technologies. This understanding extends the notion of ‘access’ to include ‘(digital) skills or competencies in media or technology use and applications’ (van Dijk, 2006, p. 224) which have a bearing on the Zimbabwean audience’s appropriation of the digital transmission platforms used by both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7. 7. ‘News on-the-go’: the mobile phone and pirate radio news consumption While the study generally revealed that the radio stations’ websites (and associated digital technologies) are mainly used by an ‘elite’ group of audiences, especially those with occupations that enable access to the Internet, the explosion in mobile phone ownership among both elite and poor has facilitated a wide and expansive distribution of news content from the radio stations. This has led to a number of writers arguing that the mobile phone can function as a true ‘mass platform’ (Mudhai, 2011) that can potentially facilitate the mass circulation of ideas leading to the formation of public opinion. The pervasiveness of the technology has redefined our conceptualisation of the implications of ‘social differentiation’ in the appropriation of digital technologies in various social contexts, including the reception and consumption of pirate radio news. It is partly for this reason that some researchers see the technology as ‘an ‘‘equalising’’ force [. . .] lessening the gap between the rich and the poor’ (Brinkman et al., 2009, p. 83). 7 See for example: ‘State Security Agents Seize Donated Radios’, reported in The News Monitor (published by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe), November 30, 2010. Retrieved October 19, 2011 from: http://www.mmpz.org/sites/default/files/News%20Monitor%2012%20.pdf.

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The mobile phone was particularly seen as central in mediating the circulation and reception of the radio station’s programming. Capitalising on the pervasiveness of the technology in the country, both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 announce their phone numbers on air inviting listeners to phone in or send SMS messages with comments on news and current affairs. Most participants in this study saw this practice as enabling them to engage directly with the radio stations’ content in unprecedented ways. As one Bulawayo based banker explained: SW radio Africa has a mobile phone number, which they repeatedly announce on air for listeners to phone in or send text messages. If I feel like I want to contribute to a particular discussion I just send an SMS, and they always call me back [. . .]. The mobile phone therefore facilitates a ‘dialogical’ form of communication between media and audiences that inverts the traditional ‘top-down’ practice in journalism, leading instead to ‘an intersection between top-down and bottom-up communication’ (Moyo, 2009, p. 561). Highlighting the centrality of the mobile phone in African radio reception practices, Myers (2008) observes that: ‘In some cases audiences are able to give feedback without even having to pay for a call, by means of ‘‘beeping’’8 the station and being called back’. This has seen erstwhile rare audience participation in the discourses churned out by the pirate radio stations. Through enabling the interactions of both mass and elite citizens with the radio stations’ news discourses, the mobile phone (especially the SMS technology) can be seen as ‘an agent of citizen inclusion and visibility in the media. It has engendered a shift from the centralisation of journalism practice to its pluralisation’ (Mabweazara, 2011, p. 703). As some audiences pointed out, the SMS technology proved particularly effective as a news source in times of political crisis when information is heavily censored by the state. This finds support in Myers’ (2008) observation, elsewhere in Africa, that: ‘The combination of radio and the mobile phone has, on many occasions, been important in political crises’. The SMS technology’s affordability and potential to allow for fast, unrestricted dissemination of news was seen as particularly important. As one prison services officer in Gweru put it: ‘[. . .] whenever the SMS news headlines carried topical news, they quickly spread like wildfire among friends’. This reinforces a point noted earlier about the mobile phone’s potential to act as a true ‘mass platform’ (Mudhai, 2011) or as an ‘equalising force’ (Brinkman et al., 2009, p. 83) among users. The direct ‘textual’ contact facilitated by the mobile phone through SMS was also described as engendering a flexible news consumption regime through continuous access to news while on the move or engaging in other activities far from the live radio transmissions. Explaining this point, a civil society activist in Harare stated: ‘I subscribe to SW Radio Africa’ SMS news facility, which guarantees me with news headlines directly to my mobile phone free of charge wherever I am [. . .]’. It is this direct and instant ‘text exchange’ (Brinkman et al., 2009) while on the move that makes the mobile phone a strategic tool for the pirate radio stations. The SMS news headlines where also seen as providing an important alternative whenever the audiences failed to tune into the radio stations because of the state-orchestrated jamming of shortwave radio signals. As one nurse in Gweru explained: Sometimes it can be so frustrating to try tune into these radio stations. I am not sure whether it is because of my old radio or not, but whenever that happens I always know that I have an alternative in the form of the SMS news headlines. Although, of course, they are not quite similar to live radio [. . .], it is better than a complete news blackout [. . .]. From the above, one might argue that the adoption of the mobile phone by both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 has redefined the reception of news content from the radio stations. The stations can no longer be defined simply in terms of the traditional ‘underground’ radio beaming radical alternative news content extra terrestrially in a unidirectional format that does not allow listeners to ‘speak back’ to their content. Rather, the collective strengths of the digital transmission platforms used by the radio stations (including the mobile phone) allow listeners to actively engage with the stations’ news discourses in exceptional ways. Digital convergence therefore increases the locus of the communicative power of pirate radio stations. It is important to emphasise the fact that while convergence is often thought of in technological terms, from the findings discussed above, one can contend that the profusion and appropriation of alternative forms of technology (such as the mobile phone SMS), and their entrenchment in local context needs, indicate that in Africa convergence can indeed take unique, socially shaped forms. 8. ‘Old habits die hard’: convergence vs. local factors in the reception of pirate radio While both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7’s multiple digital transmission strategies appear to have broadened the range of options available for the reception of their content (albeit in disproportionate ways), a key finding of this study was that traditional forms of pirate radio reception remain in force among both ‘mass’ and ‘elite’. This in part was due of the enduring questions of ‘access’ to digital technologies (as discussed above), as well as the lasting connections between local cultural traditions of orality and radio as a traditionally monomodal ‘medium of the spoken word’ (Ceesay, 2000). Thus, the cultural context of radio reception sustains consumption practices that differ markedly from contemporary practices in the economically developed world of the North where digital technologies have radically redefined radio, turning it into an ‘‘‘asocial’’ 8 The ‘beeping’ culture constitutes a typical example of how local-context-factors shape mobile phone use in Africa. It refers to dialling a number and hanging up before the phone is answered in the expectation that the other person will call back. It is a strategy to save money given that people who are normally ‘beeped’ are those considered to always have (air time) money at their disposal (Mabweazara, 2011).

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[. . .] solo medium which is isolationist rather than communal’ (Barnett and Morrison, 1989, p. 1). Most participants in the present study highlighted that traditional (pirate) radio remained their preferred source of news, as one university student in Bulawayo explained: ‘To tell the truth, I do not use any of the platforms you mention. What matters for me are the live broadcasts [. . .]. Using the Internet is a whole lot different; it doesn’t feel like its radio anyway’. Similarly, a personal assistant at a legal firm in Gweru pointed out that even with unlimited access to the radio stations’ digital platforms; live radio broadcasts remained the default setting for access to the stations’ news content: Occasionally, when I have missed the live transmissions, I browse through the radio stations’ websites at work or even download podcasts, just to get a glimpse of what they have covered, but to be honest; my real interest is in listening to live transmissions when I am relaxing at home, not the websites etcetera (emphasis added). The preference for live radio over radio that is enabled by newer technologies highlighted above broadly suggests that radio as a technology has inherent properties that predispose it to particular kinds of uses. It connects with the Zimbabwean, indeed, African oral tradition and culture, which has resisted displacement by the new digital media. Thus, while there is no question about the digital technologies broadening the space for the reception of content from both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7, local oral traditions continue to shape reception patterns. This has led some scholars to conclude that radio in Africa has survived the perceived threats of new digital technologies (Mudhai, 2011). This is particularly important given the fact that radio as the medium of the spoken word replicates and extends an already existing oral culture (Ceesay, 2000), which forms the base of communicative practices in Zimbabwe. As Myers (1998, p. 201) aptly puts it: ‘In many ways radio is the tangible modern extension of [Africa’s] oral tradition’. One ardent follower of SW Radio Africa in Harare cogently expressed these sentiments: [. . .] the thing about listening to live radio broadcasts is that, it is very personal and immediate. It speaks directly and instantaneously to your lived existence, whereas on the web, it is about taking time to read the news or, perchance, download podcasts if the Internet connection is good [. . .] It is very different to our notion of radio [. . .] (emphasis added). Highlighting the significance of the oral nature of radio, Hayman and Tomaselli (1989, p. 2) contend that: ‘The act of listening to the radio (switching on the receiver in the family home, with one or more members of the family present) could be considered as a daily habit or ritual in which ideology is present’. A civil society activist in Bulawayo reinforced this point, stating: At home, there is an unsaid rule that between 7 and 8:30 pm we switch to Studio 7 and get to appreciate as a family what is happening in the country, everybody will be there. It is part of supper! The idea of appreciating news as a family, noted above, points to the political effectiveness of the domestic context of pirate radio consumption, as the home environment is turned ‘into the world of real dialogue with the listener’ (Ceesay, 2000, p. 107) as well as a ‘centre from where individuals bridge the distance with the world’ (Winocur, 2005, p. 319). Further, communal listenership in the home environment facilitates instantaneous reflections on the news content as it is ‘immediately ‘commented upon, reinterpreted, and reinforced’ (Daloz and Verrier-Frechette, 2000, p. 181) in discursive transactions that sometimes transcend the confines of the home context. The preference for live radio in the domestic context was also closely linked to the flexibility and immediacy live audio offers. While digital platforms were predominantly described as sources of news outside the home environment (mostly at work), live radio was seen as most valuable in the home context, not least, because of the privacy and safety it provides, but also because of the flexibility and intimacy associated with the context. As one Harare-based court interpreter explained: ‘listening to [live] radio at home is not the same as podcasting or streaming on the Internet [. . .], it is hassle-free, because half the time, I am doing other stuff or just relaxed as I listen to the radio stations’. The conception of (pirate) radio as an accompaniment to daily routine in the home context is not a new one; it resonates with early studies, which described radio as ‘inextricably woven into people’s lives’ (Barnett and Morrison, 1989, p. 3). The blend between radio as an audio technology with the local traditions of orality has resulted in radio consumption practices that differ radically from the situation in the global North where, as Mudhai (2011) observes, new media have significantly redefined the reception and consumption of radio. As a result, while ‘access’ is central to the appropriation of digital technologies in the reception of pirate radio in Zimbabwe, there is a sense in which it is somewhat inconsequential in the overall determination of the impact of digital technologies on (pirate) radio reception. Thus, when examining the impact of digital technologies on radio listenership patterns in Zimbabwe and, indeed Africa at large, the extent to which radio has inherent properties that predispose it to certain kinds of uses and interpretations has to be taken into consideration.9 As Wasserman (2005, p. 165) rightly puts it: digital technologies only serve to ‘enlarge and accelerate processes already in place in societies [. . .] rather than create entirely new forces’ that radically break from old ways. Expressing similar sentiments, Gurevitch et al. (2009, p. 167) contend that the changes ushered by digital technologies only provide ‘evidence of an ecological reconfiguration [and a] recasting roles and relationships within an evolving media landscape’.

9 In doing so, however, caution must be taken to avoid lapsing into a simplistic notion of technological determinism, which sees technology as the only relevant explanatory variable of its appropriation in society.

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These views direct attention to the fact that the multiple digital transmission strategies used by both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7, complement and enhance rather than replace conventional or established patterns of (pirate) radio reception (Myers, 2008; Mudhai, 2011). 9. Conclusion From the findings discussed above, ‘pirate’ radio in Zimbabwe can be seen as ‘diversifying its forms, extending its scope, penetrating further into public and private life’ (Livingstone, 2004, p. 76), in response to the transforming impact of digital technologies. The convergence of technologies has clearly reconfigured the operations of both SW Radio Africa and Studio 7 at a number of levels, including widening access to the stations’ programming and indeed reformulating reception practices. The stations can no longer be defined simply in terms of the traditional monomodal ‘underground’ radio that eschews allowing listeners to ‘speak back’ to its content or to actively participate in the generation of its content. However, despite the ‘ecological reconfiguration’ (Gurevitch et al., 2009, p. 167) of pirate radio, traditional forms of reception and consumption (through shortwave), remain in force largely because of the enduring intersections between radio as the medium of the voice and the oral traditions of local culture. The disproportionate access to digital technologies, especially the Internet, also has significant implications on the use of the stations’ web-based transmission platforms. The value of new technologies in the reception of pirate radio in Zimbabwe, therefore, lies in the extent to which they enmesh with old reception practices rather than in supplanting the traditional ways of (pirate) radio reception. 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