Radio in Accra 2
Abstract
This paper draws on the critical cultural theory of hybridization, and hegemony to explain
how radio programming has changed in Accra, Ghana, since the change of media policy in the
mid 1990s. This article argues that private media participation has led to the use of Akan forms
of representation to facilitate communication, through the articulation of national issues among
an ethnically diverse group of people in Accra. It discusses how traditional Akan forms of
representations have assumed national significance as a result of new forms of programming and
representations. It posits that this dynamic in representation is the result of a media practice
evolved through programming, which reflect authentic Ghanaian cultural identity. Akan has
risen as a main language on some radio stations in Accra, because of the emergence of a hybrid
cultural phenomenon which allows the use of an ethnic language for communications across an
ethnically divers population.
Convention