How radio influences indigenous language podcasts in South Africa: A case study of Epokothweni and iLukuluku

Introduction and background

The media consumption landscape in South Africa is undergoing a significant transformation with the rise of digital tools and improved internet access. Despite this, radio remains the dominant platform. This is evident in recent research that shows that 80% of South Africans listen to the radio weekly (Bosch, 2022). Globally, the number of people who listen to the radio is equally high. A 2019 study found over three billion people listened to the radio weekly (Stewart, 2019). However, the accessibility of smartphones and broader internet penetration has opened new avenues for media consumption, including podcasts, which are growing in popularity (Royston, 2021). Podcasts are digital programmes that can be downloaded or streamed online, expanding beyond their initial association with the Apple iPod MP3 player and broadcasting (Van der Merwe, 2021). McGregor (2022) characterises podcasts as digital texts that initially catered to an accessible medium for amateur creators, often biased towards the same demographic as tech culture, namely white men.

One distinguishing feature that distinguishes podcasts from radio is their enhanced parasocial intimacy. Unlike traditional radio, where listeners are exposed to whatever content is on-air during a specific time, podcasts require audiences to seek out and actively subscribe to chosen content. This opt-in orientation empowers listeners to choose what and when they consume podcasts, offering greater flexibility than scheduled radio consumption. Further, podcasts differ from radio because they are distributed over the internet, while radio broadcasts are primarily transmitted over airwaves. This means that podcasts can be accessed anywhere in the world with an internet connection, while radio broadcasts are only available in areas covered by a particular radio station’s signal, except for online radio. While this flexibility is a key advantage, there are generally accepted conventions within podcast production, such as regular episode releases and distinctive series formats (Bottomley, 2015). Notably, the adoption of podcasts in Africa is noteworthy, as technological access and affordability still pose limitations for creators and consumers (Africa Podcast, 2021). Nevertheless, podcasts excel at engaging communities by leveraging their characteristic parasocial intimacy, creating a sense of connection and familiarity between listeners and their favourite hosts (McGregor, 2022).

The emergence of podcasting in South Africa can be traced back to 2015 and 2016 (Van der Merwe, 2021). While precise figures on listenership are scarce, the advertising expenditures by companies indicate a growing interest in podcasts. According to the Africa Entertainment and Media Outlook 2022 report published by PwC in October 2022, podcast advertising has become a rapidly expanding sector, recording a 30.4% revenue growth in 2020 (PwC, 2022: 12). The report further identifies Spotify as the preferred platform among South African podcast consumers, closely followed by Apple Podcasts (PwC, 2022: 12). A cursory analysis of popular podcast charts, such as Chartable, which claim to rank podcasts based on their popularity, indicates that the most widely listened to podcasts in South Africa are not typically produced by South Africans. As of October 18, 2022, a link to the chart shows only three South African-based podcasts in the top 10 (Figure 1), all in English. These trends contrast the radio landscape, where indigenous language radio stations attract a wider audience (Broadcast Research Council of South Africa, 2023).OPEN IN VIEWER

The main objective of this paper is to investigate the podcasting practices of Epokothweni and iLukuluku and explore how creators of these podcasts effectively utilise the attributes and functionalities associated with radio, a well-established platform for storytelling, to cater to South African indigenous language speakers. Specifically, this paper contends that these platforms provide an essential space for articulating marginalised voices, allowing indigenous language speakers to express their perspectives on economic and scientific matters in relevant socio-cultural ways.

Literature review

To comprehend the significance of podcasts in South Africa, we must consider the profound legacy of radio spanning over a century, as outlined in the literature. Radio has served as a pivotal platform for forming and expressing linguistic and cultural identities in this context (Lekgoathi, 2009; Onyenankeya and Salawu, 2019). In his work on the role of Radio Bantu, for example, Lekgoathi (2009: 583) argues, “The high regard in which the announcers were held by listeners was both a cause and effect of the station’s popularity overall and of the sense of the ambiguous North Sotho pride which accompanied it”. Onyenankeya and Salawu (2019: 42), meanwhile, find that in this context, indigenous language radio is a form of alternative media where speakers of these languages “not only air their views but also construct alternative images of themselves and others”. Initially, when radio was introduced in South Africa, it did not include broadcasts intended for indigenous language speakers. Only during the Second World War, with endeavours to garner support from the majority black population, did the notion of black people as a potential audience emerge. Mhlambi (2019: 213) explains it as follows:

Initially these were three-minute broadcasts inserted into the existing English (Service A) and Afrikaans (Service B) programme, which was gradually extended to 30 minutes in length. Hugh Tracey, then head of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in Durban, said he got the idea of broadcasting to African audiences in Natal when he discovered that a rumour was spreading among Africans that every Zulu speaker would earn 10 shillings a day when Hitler arrived.

Hence, from the beginning, black South Africans were never regarded as an audience meant to engage with the radio for entertainment and information (Lekgoathi, 2009). The power of radio was initially intended to shape their perspectives based on the agenda of the white South African authorities. However, when the medium eventually opened to indigenous language speakers – both as an audience and as content creators – with the first Zulu broadcast in Durban in 1941, they discovered a means to utilise its affordances to amplify their voices in a society that would otherwise continue to silence them. Gunner et al. (2011: 6) contend that despite being initially designed as a propaganda tool to serve colonial empires, radio possessed far more versatility and complexity than intended by the colonial powers. Language and radio’s ability to operate within the rich domain of cultural knowledge played a crucial role in its polysemic effectiveness and its capacity to cultivate new and occasionally rebellious publics.

Against this backdrop, the emergence of indigenous language podcasts represents a significant milestone in the South African media landscape for speakers of these languages who have historically been afforded limited agency within the sector. They have reached audiences not prioritised in an English-speaking market through digital platforms. Although precise statistics on podcast listenership in this context remain inconclusive, a report by Africa Podcast (2021: 17) suggests that podcast consumption in South Africa accounts for approximately 10% of the population. These productions, spanning various topics such as personal finance, science and technology, and arts, serve as more than just sources of entertainment and education (Africa Podcast, 2021). They also serve as repositories of African epistemology, drawing on folk laws, proverbs and idioms to articulate key messages. Furthermore, in the South African context, they offer insight from the perspective of black youths navigating their identities and those of their fellow citizens in a post-apartheid era.

Scholars of oral media posit that an essential characteristic of these media forms, including radio and podcast, is their reliance on storytelling as a powerful narrative form (Abel, 2015; McHugh, 2016). Through their presence online and on-air, these podcasts reaffirm the podcast format as one centred around storytelling, regardless of the medium of dissemination (Bottomley, 2015).

The significance of orality in contemporary African society cannot be underestimated. Rather than being an indicator of pre-modernity or a developmental lag compared to the Digital North, Africa’s diverse practices of oral literature reflect dynamic and evolving communicative traditions, including storytelling and the exchange of cultural proverbs. (Royston, 2021: 3)

The Africa Podcast (2021: v) report aptly captures the significance of podcasting, explaining, “Podcasting has provided many Africans with the opportunity to share stories that have otherwise been neglected or marginalised, enabling them to express their worldview and experiences”. This affordance holds immense value for indigenous language communities in this context, who have long been censored or silenced, depriving them of the means to articulate themselves through audio and visual media. Fox et al. (2020: 3), discussing podcasts by African Americans, note that “Black podcasts...responded to political, cultural, and social discourses in ways made possible by new technological affordances that were previously less accessible to audiences”. Florini (2015: 210) introduces the concept of “audio enclaves”, emphasising how using Black American cultural references and the intimate qualities of radio-style audio allows podcasts to recreate a sense of being in black social spaces. While the digital realm hosting these platforms is often perceived as a more accessible and inclusive space (Häussler, 2021), the harsh realities of the digital divide in African contexts mean that citizens do not benefit equally from these affordances (Schelenz and Schopp, 2018).

This issue of access starkly contrasts with radio, the most widely accessed audio medium in Africa. Therefore, it is no surprise that podcasters targeting black audiences in South Africa also recognise the need to engage radio listeners. As discussed below, the podcasts of interest in this study have successfully bridged online audiences and on-air listeners through collaboration with traditional radio stations. Epokothweni, an “award-winning personal finance podcast in isiXhosa” (Nonkenge, 2022b), partnered with Vukani FM, a community radio station primarily broadcasting in Xhosa. Likewise, iLukuluku, a “science podcast entirely hosted in Zulu, sharing knowledge about the subject to engage and educate children” (Africa, 2022), featured inserts on Ukhozi FM, the largest public service radio broadcaster that operates in Zulu, as well as on Nongoma FM, a Zulu community station. These podcast series are of particular interest in this study because they navigate an online and on-air presence, effectively bridging the digital world of the elites and the terrestrial world of the general public.

The argument advanced in this paper is that the digital nature of these podcasts gives the producers of these texts leeway to create indigenous language communities online and on-air by drawing on discursive practices such as storytelling and conversations. Indeed, as a media genre, podcasts generally provide producers with the opportunity to create communities, but for producers of indigenous South African language podcasts, the significance of creating communities online and on-air is particularly pronounced. Due to the historical legacy of colonisation and apartheid, English and Afrikaans have dominated the South African media landscape, though they are not the majority languages in this context, creating a linguistic hierarchy that reinforces the notion that indigenous languages are inferior (Nkoala, 2020). Moreover, the commercial nature of the media has justified this marginalisation based on the view that the English and Afrikaans-speaking urban middle-class population is more financially lucrative due to its spending power, while indigenous language speakers, despite being in the majority, are regarded as a less profitable audience demographic (Salawu, 2015; Wasserman and Botma, 2008).

According to Giroux (2011: 21), an analysis of the affordance presented by digital media texts such as podcasts can help us examine how “we imagine the new media and its underlying communication systems as contributing to a distinctly different public sphere that offers the promise of recasting modes of agency and politics”. In this vein, Fox et al. (2020: 7) insist that podcasts produced for black audiences are “particularly representative of online media’s capacity to usher new voices into the conversation, forging alliances across national and ethnic boundaries, and protecting those public spheres where the formative culture necessary for creating educated and informed citizens can develop”. As such, the central questions explored in this paper are: What content production strategies are employed by selected indigenous South African language podcasts? How might these provide a model for understanding the affordances these productions present for indigenous language podcasters to use these platforms in socio-culturally relevant ways?

Theoretical framework

Affordance theory is rooted in a perspective advanced by James Gibson (1977: 127) in his book Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology, where he posited that “affordances [are] ‘action possibilities’ that arise in the interaction between an animal and its environment. The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill”. The central idea of affordance theory is that the environment contains cues and information suggesting how objects can be used, or actions can be performed (Jones, 2018). Thus, the theory underscores the intimate connection between perception and action, asserting that when individuals perceive an affordance in their surroundings, it immediately triggers an appropriate action without necessitating conscious cognitive processes (Hutchby, 2001). Expounding on the applicability of this notion to digital media, Florini (2020: 154) argues that affordances “are not stable characteristics of technologies but arise in the interaction between users and technology…[they] are not just about physical and material characteristics but are also tied to perception”.

An example of the practical applicability of affordance is if one considers a social media platform’s “like” button. This digital interface element, often represented by a heart-shaped icon or a thumbs-up symbol, embodies the concept of affordance in the digital media context. The icon’s design serves as an affordance, suggesting to users that clicking it will express approval or “liking” a post. The “like” button’s visual representation directly implies its function, allowing users to engage with posts and content by indicating their approval or appreciation with a simple click. This immediate correspondence between the icon’s visual cue and the user’s intended action demonstrates how affordance theory informs the design of user interfaces in digital media, facilitating user interaction and engagement.

To this end, Nagy and Neff (2015: 1) introduce the notion of imagined affordances, which they suggest “emerge between users’ perceptions, attitudes, and expectations; between the materiality and functionality of technologies; and between the intentions and perceptions of designers”. They argue that the notion of imagined affordance helps us to “theorise the duality of materiality and communication technology: namely, that people shape their media environments, perceive them, and have agency within them because of imagined affordances” (Nagy and Neff 2015: 1). The perspective adopted in this paper aligns with the view advanced by Florini (2020: 154) that “While designers shape the materiality and functionality of a given technology, users may bring cultural practices and epistemologies that cause them to perceive the technology differently, thereby leading to the emergence of affordances”. Specifically, the paper’s focus on content production strategies and affordances arises because it allows one to delve into the specific methods and advantages that indigenous language podcasters employ to create culturally relevant and impactful content and, in so doing, assist in providing further insights into the role and significance of these podcasts in the South African media landscape.

Other than in instances where radio stations republish content that was previously broadcast on-air on their podcast platforms online, for the most part, the content shared by podcasters does not make its way onto on-air platforms, or vice-versa. By discussing how the content creators of these podcasts have imagined ways of bringing the on-air content broadcast on radio together with the online content published on their podcasts, I use content from Epokothweni and iLukuluku as a model of how South African podcasters draw on radio as an established storytelling platform for South African indigenous language speakers.

Methodology

This qualitative study utilises Epokothweni and iLukuluku as case studies to examine the phenomenon of indigenous language podcasts in South Africa. The selection of these two podcasts as case studies is justified by several key factors. Firstly, both podcasts are notable for producing content in indigenous South African languages, which is crucial for understanding the dynamics and implications of indigenous language podcasting, and both have garnered some acclaim in the South African media landscape (Nonkenge, 2022a; Scibraai, 2022). Secondly, the podcasters behind Epokothweni and iLukuluku have positioned themselves online and on-air to engage with indigenous language audiences, demonstrating a deliberate effort to connect with and serve these communities. Lastly, the chosen topics of economics and science addressed in the podcasts hold significant social relevance, making them important domains for exploring the potential impact of indigenous language podcasts on informing and empowering their target audiences. With this being a case study, it faces the same limitations that other studies employing this approach face: limited generalisability, selection bias and limited sample size (Fürsich, 2009).

Epokothweni is hosted and produced by financial expert Babalwa Nonkenge. The podcast was started in 2021 as a platform “to talk all things personal financial stewardship in my mother tongue isiXhosa” (Nonkenge, 2021). It was awarded a 2022 technology and business award by the Pan South African Language Board. The podcast has a presence on social media using the handle @epokothweni on Twitter and Instagram. It is also available on YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. The podcast is published on various platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts (Nonkenge, 2022b).

iLukuluku, disseminated by Scibraai, is a Zulu podcast. The hosts, Sibusiso Biella and Ntokozolo Nomasiko Msomi, say they are motivated by a desire to ensure that Zulu-speaking children understand the world of science better. In an interview about the podcast, Msomi said they started the podcast for the Zulu child who failed to connect with science because of the language barrier they face (Africa, 2022). Part of the podcast’s tagline, “Let’s talk science in our language”, is linked to another online outfit called Scibraai, a platform that publishes “data-driven, multimedia, multi-platform science journalism and digital storytelling in English, isiZulu and Afrikaans” (Scibraai, 2022). Founded in 2013, the platform sees itself as a means of developing science journalism and communication in South Africa using indigenous languages that “are underserved when it comes to science journalism” (Scibraai, 2022). The Scibraai team is comprised of science communicators, journalists and writers. As with Epokothweni, it uses various social media platforms to disseminate its content. The big difference between the output of these two accounts is that over and above publishing in the audio podcast, Scibraai also has text-based online articles in different languages. In contrast, Epokothweni’s content is primarily audio.

The data collection and analysis approach employed was audio content analysis, focusing on the discourse and language in these texts. Audio content analysis is a research methodology systematically examining and interpreting audio data to extract meaningful insights, patterns and information (Kotsakis et al., 2012). It focuses on analysing the content within audio recordings, such as speech, music, sound effects or any other auditory elements present. In studying podcasts, audio content analysis involves listening to podcast episodes and analysing their content. Researchers may transcribe the spoken words, identify key themes or topics discussed, analyse the tone or emotions conveyed through voice, examine nonverbal cues, and explore the overall structure and organisation of the audio content (Wang and Ji, 2015). For this paper, the focus on discourse and language was deemed most appropriate as far as it would allow for a comprehensive exploration of the linguistic, cultural and discursive dimensions in the podcasts to facilitate a deeper understanding of the communication dynamics, cultural expressions and socio-cultural significance of language use within these texts. The researcher listened to all of the episodes from Epokothweni and iLukuluku that were available until January 2022. Specific examples were selectively sampled to streamline the analysis and pinpoint production practices conducive to socio-cultural relevance. This deliberate sampling strategy facilitated a more concentrated investigation into how these practices contribute to socio-cultural significance within the podcasts. The sampled portions were transcribed and analysed to consider the discourse and linguistic aspects and the multimodal features, storytelling techniques, cultural expressions and contextual nuances in the audio recordings.

Discussion

Conclusion

While podcasting is a relatively new media form in South Africa, platforms such as Epokothweni and iLukuluku demonstrate the ability of these new online forms of audio content to draw on traditional on-air production practices, simultaneously harnessing the new affordances presented through digital platforms. In this study, consideration was given to the content production strategies employed by these two indigenous South African language podcasts and how these might provide a model for understanding the affordances these productions present for indigenous language podcasters. The paper argues that Epokothweni and iLukuluku demonstrate how podcast openings, meaningful connections with listeners and a language-conscious approach contribute to them producing content in socio-culturally relevant ways. Affordance theory is the lens through which the paper has considered how these podcasts draw on established on-air production practices while exploiting the distinct affordances introduced by digital platforms.

The study finds that in terms of creating meaningful connections with their audiences, these podcasts employ different strategies, including valuing active collaboration in fostering a sense of closeness and friendship with audiences. Secondly, the study considered language, arguing that with indigenous languages (because at the centre of the production, both podcasts essentially share content in Xhosa and Zulu, respectively), both have a language-conscious approach that employs multilingual communication strategies such as code-switching. Considering how Zulu and Xhosa are used in these podcasts has demonstrated how their multilingual approach can be viewed as a means of responsiveness to who black South Africans are, namely multilingual people rather than the monolingual people content producers have historically imagined them to be. This finding must be read alongside issues concerning podcasting and the study of indigenous language media in South Africa and beyond, including concerns around the sustainability of indigenous language media, which are prone to the same funding challenges faced by mainstream media in indigenous languages (Africa Podcast, 2021; Salawu, 2015), and concerns that these platforms could further marginalise indigenous languages from mainstream media (Royston, 2021). Further, challenging this dominant narrative, indigenous language podcasts can counterbalance the marginalisation of indigenous languages and voices in the South African media landscape. By centring indigenous languages in storytelling and conversations, the podcasts reinforce the importance of these languages as carriers of cultural identity, fostering pride and a sense of community among speakers (Malungana, 1999; Aiseng, 2022).

Further research is needed to explore the effectiveness of linguistic and cultural adaptation strategies in indigenous language podcasts. This could mean investigating the impact of code-switching, translanguaging and multilingual communication strategies on audience engagement, comprehension and knowledge retention. Additionally, studying the preferences and perceptions of listeners regarding the use of formal and informal registers in indigenous language podcasts can provide valuable insight into language choices and their impact on audience reception. A comparative analysis between indigenous language podcasts and podcasts in other languages should also be undertaken to examine indigenous language content creators’ unique affordances and challenges. Such studies can provide insight into how indigenous language podcasts might leverage their distinct features to enhance audience experience and contribute to the broader podcasting landscape.