Promoting Social Cohesion or an Enabler of Tribalism? A Closer Look at Community Radio Language Policies in Post-Apartheid South Africa's Malamulele FM and Vuwani FM

Tribalism is a social phenomenon polarising South Africa along ethnic lines and undermining democratic efforts for social cohesion in the newly reconfigured inclusive territorial zones. Community radio is expected to play a social cohesion role of uniting cohabiting disparate ethnic groups within these spaces by promoting multilingualism. This paper examines the role of community radio policies in promoting social cohesion within the interethnic communities of Collins Chabane Municipality in Limpopo Province, using Malamulele FM and Vuwani FM as case studies. The study is situated within the broadcasting policy perspective and adopted an analytic approach to document studies which combined elements of content analysis and thematic analysis to analyse the policies of Malamulele FM and Vuwani FM that contain detailed language policy provisions. We found that language functions ideologically in these community radio policies and regulatory models to perpetuate tribalism. The article proposes a realignment of community radio language policies and regulation towards the objective of social cohesion and an inclusive South African society by promoting multilingualism in its broadcasting, and away from its current majoritarianism model.