The Positioning of Citizen-Influenced Radio in the Battle for the Control of Minds

Abstract

Zimbabwe is an illuminating case study that glaringly shows how radio, as a powerful medium, plays a role in the battle for the control of minds in a conflict-ridden environment. As a medium that has a significant impact on politics and power, it remains a preferred medium of hegemonic projects that are of great service to the status quo. It is effective in facilitating the ideological manipulation of the masses. This explains the interest that has been shown with regard to the control of radio by both the colonial governments and the Zimbabwean government, leading to the emergence of alternative voices from outside the country that have been offering the masses an alternative voice to that churned out by the state. These radio stations emerged during the time the state was named Rhodesia as a tool to fight against colonialism. Most interestingly, they have re-emerged after independence, their focus though, no longer being the liberation from colonial occupation, but what Moyo (2012) sees as a new form of liberation from emerging forms of oppression perpetrated by the former liberators on the people they are supposed to have liberated. This chapter therefore seeks to examine the impact of radio both in pre-and post-independent Zimbabwe, with the aim of creating an understanding of why voices are still emerging from the diaspora in a country which is a signatory to the 1991 Windhoek Declaration, which upholds freedom of expression and access to information as a constitutional and democratic right for all citizens.