ABSTRACT
In many places, radio remains a social institution that binds local communities together (Girard 2003; Moyo 2013a, 2013b; Mudhai 2011; Willems 2013). Of the ‘newer’ technologies that have proliferated globally since the 1990s, mobile phones’ reach in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries remains a salient fact. As has been shown elsewhere (for instance, Girard 2008; Gagliardone 2015), mobiles are key to the evolved mediascape in Africa. In Ghana, since privately-owned radio station Joy FM began the practice of including phone-in song requests in the early 1990s, with listeners calling the station to request songs for friends and loved ones, new and networked media have steadily become part of industry practice over the last two decades (Avle 2011; Coker 2012). The question that remains is how audiences use other forms of new media, particularly social media, to engage with and participate in terrestrial radio content.
