Framing and community broadcasting on family development issues in South Africa: a content analysis of Setswana and Sesotho languages

Abstract

The idea of community broadcast in the African continent is aimed to enhance citizen participation and grass-root development. This study investigated the extent to which community radio makes use of indigenous languages to give attention to family development issues in South Africa. This study was anchored on the framing and ecological system theories, which stipulate that community radio has the capacity to place emphasis on a specific angle of a news story or socio-cultural issue. The method used for data collection was content analysis, which provided qualitative and quantitative data to achieve the objectives of the study. The results indicated that almost 45% of family development issues focused on challenges of marriage in South Africa; more than 19% of family development issues were centered on youth and young people. The challenges of marriage were at the focal point of debate and discussion on family development issues. The study concluded that community radio operatives must work hand-in-hand with psychologists and counselors in message creation for broadcast programming so as to address the perennial socio-cultural issues plaguing the African continent.