"In pursuit of publicity": Talk radio and the imagination of a moral public in urban Mali

The article explores the forms and contents of public communication made possible by local radio stations which have been mushrooming in various towns of Mali since 1992. As a case study about communication in a specific geographical area in south-eastern Mali, the article contributes to the on-going discussion on how mass media do affect and facilitate the formation of new communal identities in an increasingly globalised media world. As they broadcast local languages and folklore, local radio stations in Mali play the most significant role in areas where people do not speak or understand French or Bamana/Maninka, the languages that have dominated broadcasts on national radio since independence. But even in areas where people do understand these languages and therefore the broadcasts of the national radio, local radio stations are highly popular since they facilitate a process in the course of which listeners come to see themselves as members of a new community that shares language, musical taste and moral judgement. Radio speakers become emblematic figures of these imagined communities. In particular during talk radio programs, the speakers evoke the audience of listeners as a public of common morals by addressing issues of general interest, and, even more importantly, by drawing on conventional forms of humour and modes of prestige enhancement.