Interactive and Participatory Media and New Media Actors in West Africa. Call-In programs and the role of the grogneurs in the Republic of Benin

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Tilo Grätz
• Subject Area: Communication Sciences ; African, American and Oceania Studies ; Social and Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 452727179

The research project examines current changes in communication practices and political culture in West Africa, exemplified by case studies on interactive-participatory radio shows on social issues in the Republic of Benin. It particularly focuses on the most frequent callers of these programs, the so-called grogneurs and analyses their position within new information circuits, their media practices and relations to journalists, politicians and other media users. Furthermore, the research project asks to what extent public spheres can change and unfold new spaces of social participation through the intermediary role of these grogneurs on the one hand, and the special combination of new and classic communication media on the other. Finally, new challenges of these interactive forms of broadcasting for professional actors of communication such as radio journalists are being explored, which are confronted with an increasing diversity of sources of information. The research project will make a substantial contribution to the theory of communicative practices, in this case related to the convergent media use of central actors of public communication. In the context of increasing political liberalization and the mediatization of political communication, these forms of media appropriation and media practices will have an enormous impact on social communication. Using the example of caller radio broadcasts in the Republic of Benin (West Africa) and its main protagonists, the project does not only want to investigate new types of political communication and participation, but also to investigate the societal relevance of interactively participative media in everyday life.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants