ABSTRACT
The development of new technologies and social media has emboldened ethnic minorities all over the world. Minority groups have become more visible in promoting their identity, defining their nationhood, reclaiming, restoring, revitalising and documenting their hitherto marginalised languages, as well as promoting their traditions, cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge systems. This chapter provides an exploration of the programmes on Okun Radio Online. The main aims are to appreciate how those programmes serve as a catalyst for maintaining Okun indigenous languages and how they promote the preservation of Okun Yoruba cultural heritage. Data were collected from unstructured one-off individual interviews, making field notes during and after listening to live Okun Radio, textual analysis of songs and programmes and also from past interviews on SoundCloud and YouTube. The data were analysed and discussed using the primordial theory of ethnic studies as well as Paulston’s social mobilisation theory of language maintenance. The findings are used to answer the two research questions: How are Okun dialects maintained on Okun Radio? How do the programmes on Okun Radio promote the traditional and cultural heritage of Okun people at home and in the diaspora? The chapter concludes by drawing attention to the role that new technologies and social media are playing in the maintenance of ethnic minority languages, cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge through the positive attitude of their speakers.
