African Online Radio Stations and the Promotion of Local Languages: A not so Easy Equation to Solve

Abstract

Radio broadcasting is the means of communication, which focuses the most on the language, and the one, which best brings it to life. It is for this reason that the proliferation of radio stations, especially in the most remote areas of the world, constitutes an opportunity for the survival of local languages. African radio stations live this experience on a daily basis. They use local languages extensively, giving them a life beyond their use in the tight circles in which they may be confined due to the imposition of Western languages the instruction, work and sometimes even the media field. However, this is not the same on the Internet, where we can certainly rejoice in listening to programs in African languages, but with much less possibilities than on the terrestrial band. The question is to know what explains this discrepancy between the abundant offer of radio stations in terms of languages in their FM programming and the relative absence of these same languages in their online programming.

Keywords

• african radios
• local languages
• local cultures
• representation
• promotion