Freedom news radio international7/26/2023 The very first broadcast attempts of Freedom Radio were done clandestinely within South Africa. In a 1993 interview, Pallo Jordan, who served on the propaganda portfolio of the ANC, said, “We recognised that radio was a very important medium what we said was that radio offers the movement the rare opportunity of holding what can, in fact, be a mass meeting inside the country at least once a day, if you did it right.” However, African oral culture had proved resilient despite modernity, and by tapping into the new medium the ANC sought to shape the political perspectives of a broad spectrum of listenership. The ANC had come to realise the power of spoken word in a country in which its large support base at the grassroots was plagued by high illiteracy rates. Radio was part of a broader mass communication strategy which also incorporated print media. This was also the period when the National Party government, through the SABC which it had practically turned into its propaganda machine, had begun extending its means of communication in the different African languages in the country and had in fact launched Radio Bantu as a fully-fledged station on frequency modulation (FM).Ĭonsidering these developments, the ANC and its allies were compelled to challenge the state’s monopoly over the airwaves and to establish a broadcast medium that would present their perspectives on news and current affairs to counter state propaganda, and begin advancing a Pan African message. The idea of using broadcast media as one of the strategies within the liberation movement in South Africa came shortly after a turn to the armed struggle in the period after the Sharpeville massacre on 21 March 1960. The BBC, for example, began broadcasting in Afrikaans in 1937 to counter the perceived Nazi threat. The war served to underline to the colonial powers the usefulness of radio in the conduct of international relations-even in Africa. In fact, the use of Afrikaans by Radio Zeesen arguably makes it the first Southern African language to be used on international propaganda radio. Radio Zeesen, targeted sympathetic elements in both Namibia and South Africa before World War II. The first concerted attempt to influence political opinion in Southern Africa by means of radio dates to the 1930s when the Nazi station. Revolutionaries were labelled as terrorists they used every possible media to demonise the revolution and poison the hearts of the Africans with fear. The apartheid government had an agenda to make sure that they made our people feel as inferior as possible through their apartheid propaganda. The handover ceremony was also a fitting tribute to South Africa as the country also marks 25 years of democracy.Īs the war and fight raged on the ground, an ideological battle was also being fought on the airwaves. It was one of the oldest liberation radio stations in Africa. Arguably, the fight for freedom would not have advanced the way it did without Radio Freedom, the African National Congress’ official broadcaster.Įstablished during the darkest days of the apartheid regime, Radio Freedom provided waves of mass resistance to the regime with broadcasts from different radio stations (including those of Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, Ethiopia, and Madagascar). On Wednesday 24 April, South Africa received radio equipment that was instrumental in advancing its struggle for independence.
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