Sustainable Broadcasting in Africa: Insights From Two South African Campus Radio Stations

Abstract

University campus-based community radio stations (CRS) are widely acknowledged as vehicles for supporting grassroot social and economic development. Despite these stations‟ popularity, the emerging technologies they exploit to advance such development initiatives, including their exact impact on their economic and social sustainability, remains a grey area. The objectives of this study are two-fold. First, to establish the social media applications that university-based CRS in South Africa employ in fulfilling their broadcasting mandates. Second, to examine how the utilisation of these applications impact the economic/ financial and social sustainability of these stations and their listenership. Drawing insights from in-depth interviews with presenters, station and programme managers, the study found limited appropriation of WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, station websites, livestreams and podcasts for content programming and broadcasting. Furthermore, while it was unclear how social media livestreaming contributed to economic sustainability, its effects on social sustainability found expression in connecting advertisers to livestreams to support real-time advertising. The implications of these are discussed.