This article argues that the material history of mobile phones as they took shape in Ghana reveals them to be essential parts of radio’s infrastructure; one that is social, informal, and transnational. Using the radio tuning feature on mobile phones as an emblematic device, this article unpacks the sociotechnical infrastructure underpinning radio’s continued dominance in Ghana, revealing the intersecting logics that help to sustain the media technology landscape in the country.
AvleS (2011) Global flows, media and developing democracies: the Ghanaian case. Journal of African Media Studies3(1): 7–23.
3.
AvleSLindtnerS (2016) Design(ing) ‘here’ and ‘there’: tech entrepreneurs, global markets, and reflexivity in design processes. In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference on human factors in computing systems, San Jose, CA, 7–12 May, pp. 2233–2245. New York: ACM.
4.
AvleSQuarteyEHutchfulD (2018) Research on mobile phone data in the global south. In: WellesBFGonzalez-BaillonS (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Networked Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 488–512.
5.
BijkerWE (1995) Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
ChiumbuSHLigagaD (2013) ‘Communities of strangerhoods?’ Internet, mobile phones and the changing nature of radio cultures in South Africa. Telematics and Informatics30: 242–251.
8.
CokerW (2012) Mobile communication and the culture of self-expression: the case of SMSing to radio in Ghana. Journal of Media and Communication Studies4: 123–133.
9.
DyeMNemerDMangiameliJ, et al. (2018) The human infrastructure of El Paquete, Cuba’s offline internet. Interactions26: 58–62.
10.
FarmanJ (2017) Repair and software: updates, obsolescence, and mobile culture’s operating systems. Continent6: 20–24.
HenrichJHeineSJNorenzayanA (2010) The weirdest people in the world?Behavioral and Brain Sciences33: 61–83.
13.
HorstHA (2013) The infrastructures of mobile media: towards a future research agenda. Mobile Media & Communication1: 147–152.
14.
HoustonLJacksonSJ (2016) Caring for the next billion mobile handsets: opening proprietary closures through the work of repair. In: Proceedings of the eighth international conference on information and communication technologies and development, Ann Arbor, MI, 3–6 June, p. 10. New York: ACM.
15.
JacksonSJKangL (2014) Breakdown, obsolescence and reuse: HCI and the art of repair. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, Toronto, Canada, April 2014, pp. 449–458. New York: ACM.
16.
LindtnerSGreenspanALiD (2015) Designed in Shenzhen: Shanzhai manufacturing and maker entrepreneurs. In: Proceedings of the fifth decennial Aarhus conference on critical alternatives, Aarhus, Denmark, August 2015, pp. 85–96. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
17.
LingRS (2012) Taken for Grantedness the Embedding of Mobile Communication into Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
18.
MareA (2013) New media, pirate radio and the creative appropriation of technology in Zimbabwe: case of Radio Voice of the People. Journal of African Cultural Studies25: 30–41.
19.
MudhaiOF (2011) Survival of radio culture in a converged networked new media environment. In: WassermanH (ed.) Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 253–268.
NunooFE (2015) The ‘serial callers’ of Ghana: how ‘serial callers’ influence public debate on talk radio and the implications for Ghana’s public sphere. Master’s Thesis, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
23.
PrahaladCK (2006) The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. Bengaluru, India: Pearson Education.
SeyA (2011) New media practices in Ghana. International Journal of Communication5: 380–405.
26.
StarSL (1999) The ethnography of infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist43: 377–391.
27.
StarSLBowkerGC (2006) How to infrastructure. In: LievrouwLALivingstoneSM (eds) Handbook of New Media: Social Shaping and Social Consequences of ICTs. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 230–245.
28.
StarSLRuhlederK (1996) Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: design and access for large information spaces. Information Systems Research7: 111–134.
WillemsW (2013) Participation ‚Äì In what? Radio, convergence and the corporate logic of audience input through new media in Zambia. Telematics and Informatics30: 223–231.
31.
WongWWY (2017) Speculative authorship in the city of fakes. Current Anthropology58: S103–S112.