‘Mobile Radio’ and Youth Identity Formation on the Streets of Harare

Abstract

As young people increasingly consume FM radio through mobile telephony gadgets such as earphones and headphones, as well as in-built mobile phone applications capable of receiving FM signals, new consumption cultures tied to self-identity and the recreation of personal space are emerging. In Zimbabwe, young urbanites involved in various forms of informal trading engage with mobile technologies to consume FM ‘mobile radio’ in ways that reflect self-conscious attempts to recreate and model space boundaries in shared public spaces. As a result, their perception and experience with FM radio are radically different from that of the generation that grew in analogue legacy media when radio was capable of fostering what could be referred to as ‘imagined communities’ drawn together by a simultaneity of experience with the co-present. However, FM radio received via mobile gadgets may foster a different type of audience that is primarily disaggregated, atomised and removed from the real face-to-face communities.