ABSTRACT
In South Africa’s partly privatised media landscape, entertainment and information remain the primary mandates of radio. More than ever, however, contemporary content producers have to accommodate commercial obligations towards sponsors and business partners and thus change the face of public media spaces. The merging of media outlets known as convergence plays a vital role in this commodification process. By integrating social media formats, radio also inherits their specific commercial logic. Charity represents one way of redressing social imbalances caused by capitalism and seemingly serves public, non-profit interests. It thereby depends heavily on converged media spaces. This chapter taps into the research gap of media analysis on mediated charity in the Global South. From the perspective of political economy, this chapter critically examines the ambiguous nature of the radio charity genre between altruism and commerce and reflects on its role in South Africa. Based on the empirical analysis of selected charity promotions in South African radio shows, the chapter discusses commercial communication on radio through a semiotic lens. The analysis considers the multi-layered effects that convergence – e.g. through streaming video recorded radio shows on social media – brings about in realising the genre of charity promotion.
