Abstract:
University campus-based community radio stations (CRS) are widely
acknowledged as vehicles for supporting grassroot social and economic
development. Despite these stations‟ popularity, the emerging technologies they
exploit to advance such development initiatives, including their exact impact on
their economic and social sustainability, remains a grey area. The objectives of
this study are two-fold. First, to establish the social media applications that
university-based CRS in South Africa employ in fulfilling their broadcasting
mandates. Second, to examine how the utilisation of these applications impact
the economic/ financial and social sustainability of these stations and their
listenership. Drawing insights from in-depth interviews with presenters, station
and programme managers, the study found limited appropriation of WhatsApp,
Facebook, Twitter, station websites, livestreams and podcasts for content programming and broadcasting. Furthermore, while it was unclear how social
media livestreaming contributed to economic sustainability, its effects on social
sustainability found expression in connecting advertisers to livestreams to
support real-time advertising. The implications of these are discussed.
