The Limits of Governmentality

Call-in Radio and the Subversion of Neoliberal Evangelism in Zambia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2173370
AutoresAlastair Fraser (0000-0003-2819-6474, African Politics, SOAS, University of London, London, UK, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen36
Número1
Páginas41-57
Fecha de publicación2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696815.2023.2283179
OpenAlexW4388978062
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas21

The spread of mobile telephones in Africa has enabled a broad range of citizens to join live conversations on call-in radio shows. Both African governments and foreign aid agencies claim that broadcasting such debates can raise awareness, amplify the voices of the poor, and facilitate development and better governance; they now fund a large share of interactive shows in some countries. Critics of such participatory initiatives typically accept that they have powerful effects but worry that debates among citizens are deployed as a technology of “governmentality”, producing forms of popular subjectivity compatible with elitist economic systems and technocratic political regimes. This article argues that instrumentalising political debate is harder than either side assumes, and that the consequences of these shows are mainly unintended. It develops an in-depth case of a Zambian call-in radio programme, “Let’s Be Responsible Citizens”, emphasising the ability of the show’s audience, and its host, to subvert the programme’s surveillance and governmentality agenda, and to insist that the key responsibilities of citizens are to criticise, rather than adapt to, policies and systems of governance that do not meet their needs

Business · Citizen journalism · Corporate governance · Disinformation · Governmentality · Media studies · Neoliberalism (international relations · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social media · Sociology · Subversion · Technocracy · Digital Games and Media · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media Studies and Communication · Public Administration