Radio via mobile phones: the intersecting logics of media technologies in Ghana

Abstract

This article argues that the material history of mobile phones as they took shape in Ghana reveals them to be essential parts of radio’s infrastructure; one that is social, informal, and transnational. Using the radio tuning feature on mobile phones as an emblematic device, this article unpacks the sociotechnical infrastructure underpinning radio’s continued dominance in Ghana, revealing the intersecting logics that help to sustain the media technology landscape in the country.

Media power in digital Asia: Super apps and megacorps

“…To date, discussions around platforms and infrastructure have called attention to the essential, infrastructural nature of digital platforms ( Plantin and de Seta, 2019 ; Plantin and Punathambekar, 2019 ). Apps and platforms have been studied from the angle of their cultural uses or their interfaces ( Light et al, 2018 ); their methodological challenges ( Avle, 2020 ; Dieter et al, 2019 ; Gerlitz, 2019 ; Morris and Murray, 2018 ); their racializing algorithms of oppression ( Noble, 2018 ); the labor of content moderators behind our screens ( Roberts, 2019 ); and their intersections with power distribution, including by the state ( Dijck et al, 2018 ; Su, 2022 ). The ways apps mediate labor particularly within the gig economy context has been the source of excellent work within the Asian context in particular.…”

Hardware and data in the platform era: Chinese smartphones in Africa

“…Experimenting with custom features is an essential aspect of the shanzhai indigenous innovation system that Transsion emerged from and is seen in the "place-based" design work that goes into Transsion's phones across Africa (Lu, 2020). Other brands like X-Tigi also first made an appearance by creating phones that looked retro in form but similarly functioned in response to on-the-ground situations like Ghana's frequent electricity outages circa 2016, and then fluidly changed with demands as the country returned to more stable power (Avle, 2020).…”

“…Transsion since the beginning positioned Tecno as specially crafted for dark-skinned subjects as described by Avle and Lindtner (2016) and corroborated in analysis of Transsion’s camera patents (Lu and Qiu, 2022). Along with long battery life, the ability to tune into radio, and other Africa-focused features, Transsion encodes African needs into its hardware design and is rewarded with its phones in most hands and pockets across the continent (Avle, 2020). Other accounts of Transsion brands attest to these on the ground methods that have resulted in finely calibrated products for carefully differentiated markets (Lu, 2020, 2021).…”

Podcasts and new orality in the African mediascape

“…Aesthetically, Ong described electronically mediated orality as production practices that draw on the qualities of live performance and orature. These affordances have special resonance in podcasting generally (Florini, 2019), and for digital radio in Africa specifically (Avle, 2020). The term new orality can help describe the capacities of podcasts, online video, digital radio programming, audio books, texting, even voice-command and digital assistants, such as Siri, which reproduce sensations of liveness (Auslander, 2008(Auslander, [1999; Crisell, 2012), participation, narrator-driven performance, rhetoric, material spatiality, and ephemerality associated with oral (not primitive) cultures.…”

“…African digital media encounters, as described in the first section, are centered around mobile phones in a more fundamental way than in the West: Primary Internet access is achieved via mobile SIM cards and hot-spotting more so than on desktop devices or Wi-Fi; “Flashing” and voice-messaging via WhatsApp are practices are common across the African mediascape. Instead of streaming FM radio via the mobile web, most listeners utilize tuners embedded in their devices (Avle, 2020; GSMA, 2018). Agricultural tech firms aimed at serving rural farmers, such as Esoko and AgroCenta in Ghana (featured on BTF ), provide information services, such as weather conditions and crop news via robo-voice messages to its subscribers.…”