Fan Clubs

At Kangema FM, fan clubs were launched following the setting up of the station in the community. The clubs took the form of ‘salaams [greetings] clubs’, which consisted of community members actively involved with the station through activities such as sending on-air greetings to each other, acting as distributors of greeting cards, and organising events which they invited the station to. From discussion with the fan club members and station staff, it emerged that this involvement was for the purpose of accessing benefits, both material and

99 I use the term ‘fan club’ and ‘fan group’ interchangeably in this chapter, as used by the community members and producers. At both Kangema FM and Mugambo FM, the members of these groups refer to themselves as

‘fans’. However, at Kangema FM they consistently refer to the groups as ‘fan clubs’, while at Mugambo FM, they interchangeably use the terms ‘fan club’ and ‘fan group’. These fan clubs and groups are not organised around text produced by the station, but rather, around the station as an institution. They are thus markedly different from fan communities, in which fans engage in “grassroots archiving, annotation, appropriation and recirculation” (Jenkins 2012, 454) of content.

otherwise, from the station.¹⁰⁰ However, when these benefits were not forthcoming, enthusiasm for the clubs waned, with members feeling that they were getting nothing out of it. Some then evolved into self-help groups, with members making regular financial contributions, but other clubs died.¹⁰¹ In this ‘self-transformation towards a non-predefined direction’, these groups took on the characteristics of a public as proposed by Milioni (2009). Apparently, these clubs were formed as a strategy to lay claim to the benefits seen to lie with the station. The initiators of the groups mobilised their social solidarity (Calhoun 2003) as a way to achieve certain goals.

They saw the possibility of content-related participation and structural participation (Carpentier 2012), and formed these groups as a collective way to engage in these forms of participation.

According to Calhoun (2003), the less privileged depend on social solidarity, whether communal, ethnic or national, to get things done, because as individuals they do not have the necessary clout to achieve their goals. In this setting, the fan clubs were created as a way for the community to exercise their collective voice in the affairs of the station.

For these groups, Kangema FM is apparently viewed as a government-installed community resource that all community members should benefit from, rather than merely a radio station to air development programmes, as KMD intended it to be. While KMD sees itself as addressing a possibly passive audience, the fan groups are acting as publics. They seem to be ahead of KMD in recognising the participatory potential of the station and formally organising themselves to participate. Through the fan clubs, community members organized themselves to access and influence the station, with the programme content secondary to their concerns.

As Butsch (2011) argues, what distinguishes audiences from publics is their practices, regardless of which media technology is available. In this case, the community expressed a pre-existent civic culture which it mobilised to act as a public rather than as an audience.

Ironically, therefore, much as the station seeks to avoid politics and religion in its programming, as outlined in Chapter 4, there are social formations around the station which

100 In informal discussions with station staff in 2014 and 2016, it emerged that when the station started, community members expected it to be a resource from which they could benefit not only information-wise but also financially. This was possible especially before the institution of financial management systems which tracked financial flows at the station. During group interviews with community members, the respondents stated that the station used to ‘promote’ them at its inception, but not anymore.

101At the time of the group interviews in 2014, fan club members interpreted the soliciting of their opinions about Kangema FM as a sign of renewed interest in them by the station (although it was made clear that the interviews were for the purposes of research and were not commissioned by the station). During the interviews, they verbally urged each other to be active in the clubs once again since it was a ‘new beginning’.

act politically, outside of the programme content. Political mobilisation is not originated by the station, but rather, it emanates from the community members themselves. Through rallying each other, they make use of social solidarity to achieve a collective goal: participation in and through the media. From the station aims, the station views itself as a gatekeeper to the political, but instead, the political is taking place outside of the station, and then seeking to co-opt the station into the process.

The station thus becomes not the source of political activity for the community, but rather, an object of the community’s intentions. Kangema FM ends up in a position of responding to community political overtures, rather than its imagined position of initiating these overtures.

The station’s assumed position in the community’s political processes is in this way challenged and even subverted. Rodriguez (2006) argues that “alternative media spin transformative processes that alter people’s sense of self, their subjective positionings, and therefore their access to power” (Rodriguez 2006, 773). In the case of Kangema FM, there are indications that this process, although not intended and even resisted by the station, is taking place through the self-organisation of fan clubs. Community members, through these clubs, conceive themselves as having more power to express their voice in the community public sphere.

This group civic agency, despite its emphasis on collective action, is however impacted both by a desire for celebrity and by interpersonal relationships with the producers. This was alluded to in group interviews, as demonstrated in the following excerpt:

Interviewee 9: Before we used to be very proud to have a station right here, and we used to say this is ours and we supported it very much with a lot of enthusiasm and joy.

We used to be very active and meet together in various locations, even our husbands wouldn’t question when we told them that we are going for such meetings, because he would hear you in the evening when the recorded programme is aired… (Italics mine, Interviewee 9, Group Interview 1, Kanoorero, 26.11.2014)

Facilitator: But now it seems that there are no longer such things?

Interviewee 9: No there isn’t. Nowadays I don’t even bother listening to Kangema FM.

(Italics mine, Interviewee 9, Group Interview 1, Kanoorero, 26.11.2014) Facilitator: And aren’t you feeling bad about that?

Interviewee 9: You know when a thing gets started it should be maintained. If you people light the fire again, we the fans you will be surprised at the lengths to which we will go. (Interviewee 9, Group Interview 1, Kanoorero, 26.11.2014)

Interviewee 7: And now the things like what we are telling you now, if you implement them, for instance if you get to know one another with the fans, then they can be calling

you. But now what will I call to say when you don’t know me? (Italics mine, Interviewee 7, Group Interview 1, Kanoorero, 26.11.2014)

For both of the respondents above, the two benefits of engaging with the station are to be heard on-air, and to be known personally by the producers. As per Interviewee 7 above, the incentive for participating in a call-in show is not the opportunity to air one’s views. Rather, being personally recognised in the mediated public sphere by the media worker is the biggest motivation for calling in. Participation through the media is in this case not seen as an activity independent of interpersonal relationships, but rather, is predicated on them. Although participation in self representation and public debate is a community-level process, here it is tied to interpersonal relationships. While Carpentier (2012) proposes access-interaction-participation as an axis of increasing participatory intensities, in this community, access and interaction are in tension with each other, with interaction acting as a determinant of participation through the media. In this context, radio’s value as a phatic medium – as a means of maintaining social connections – overlaps with its value in developing a civic culture through engaging in public debate. The personal is not only intertwined with political participation, but is, in fact, a determinant of willingness to participate in public sphere processes. For these fan club members, expression of themselves as publics is influenced by personal relationships. As such, using the radio for the personal and the political are intricately linked and have an impact on each other.

5.4 Koch FM

Around Koch FM, out of the107 people surveyed, 48 were male and 59 female. Their ages ranged from 16 to above 60 years old, with only 3 respondents declining to disclose their age.

The highest number of respondents – almost half - fell in the 21-30 years old age bracket. The age bracket with the lowest representation was that of over 60 years of age.