"In Chapter 2, I adopt a scoping literature review to analyse the socio-economic and political factors that shaped the participation and representation of majorised indigenous language speakers and the exclusion of minoritised indigenous languages on African radio. A scoping literature review investigates the development and growth of public, commercial and community radio broadcasting in Malawi, Namibia, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and other African countries to understand the historical dynamics that informed the development of indigenous African radio and language policy. The study answers the question: how were indigenous languages majorised and minoritised on African radio? The findings of the study reflect how Africa modelled the European monolingualism approach by majorising popular indigenous languages. Thus, the so-called monolingualism approach was assumed to be more unifying yet created more ethnic divisions through “othering”. Chapter 2 argues that Africa should start correcting the wrongs of history by embarking on linguistic inclusion and recognising minoritised language speakers in radio broadcasting.
In Chapter 3, I interrogate minority language(s) accommodation on public and commercial radio. The chapter highlights that minority languages are often accommodated through news bulletins, weekly talkshows, music and greetings or poetic programmes on multilingual public and commercial radio. Thus, I query the limitations and prospects for minority language accommodation. Using in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation on public and commercial radio stations in Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Kenya, Chapter 3 shows that minority language programmes are largely affected by lack of participants and content, code-switching to major indigenous languages and limited actualities in news bulletins. Using the African multilingual public sphere as theory, the chapter argues that minority language accommodation on public and commercial radio should be sustained by the availability of minority language speakers and actual news bulletins, rather than mere translations from dominant languages and majority language analysts or commentators.
In Chapter 4, I critically discuss the exclusion of minoritised minority languages on community radio. I note that the grassroots of African rural communities have several dialects or languages that remain marginalised. To unveil these smaller forgotten ethnic groups, the chapter employs an ethnographic approach on several community radio stations in Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, Nigeria and Lesotho and also uses in-depth interviews to extract perspectives from listeners, presenters, media experts and linguists. The study answers the questions: How are minoritised minority languages marginalised on community radio and what are the challenges involved in their inclusion? Referring to the political economy of community radio as theory, I argue that linguistic patterns of marginalisation also manifest at the lowest level of the local community’s multilingual public sphere. Chapter 4 argues that community radio should also endeavour to accommodate minor minority languages regardless of the demographic size for the cultural preservation of such endangered languages.
In Chapter 5, I take a conceptual approach as I cite cases from the public, commercial and community radio stations studied in previous chapters. I argue that diverse ethnolinguistic groups pose challenges in how to accommodate multiple indigenous languages on Africa’s three-tier broadcasting system. As a conceptual chapter, Chapter 5 takes a decentralising or polycentric approach to the cultural context of radio in Africa for the accommodation of every language regardless of its linguistic demographic size. The chapter grapples with the question: what effective methodological and epistemological approaches 12 African Radio and Minority Languages are necessary in decentralising the ethnolinguistic public sphere for equity inclusion, especially the excluded minoritised indigenous languages? Using
case studies of public, commercial and community radio in Africa, I therefore suggest decentralising public radio, commercialising multilingualism on commercial radio and diversifying community radio. These three approaches meet the challenges of every broadcasting model given that each model is distinct in concept and function. By doing so, the chapter notes that the radio coverage gap between majorised and minoritised languages can be reduced." (Chapter synopses of the book, pages 10-12)