On This Episode of African Environmental Communication: African Environmental Podcasts and Ecocultural Identities

Abstract

Keeping up with the times, environmental communication has evolved to make room for new media technologies that are changing the ways information is being created and disseminated. Research on podcasts for environmental communication shows that they are suited for communicating complex environmental topics and facilitate knowledge retention due to their auditory and conversational nature. But when looking at traditional and new media environmental communication research, it becomes clear that Global South perspectives have not been given the attention they deserve. Produced by environmentalists across the continent, podcasts are touted as alternative media spaces that, despite their relative newness to the African environmental mediascape, function as sites of ongoing discourse about how African communities are struggling to cope under the crisis, and how they are coming together to fight back the disproportionate brunt they are forced to bear. Podcast conversations also articulate diverse African ecocultural identities that are being mobilized for pro- or anti- environmental progress on the continent. This study applies a combination of qualitative thematic analysis and eco-linguistic critical discourse analysis (CDA) to explore the major themes raised by African environmental podcasts and the manifestations of ecocultural identity discourse. The findings revealed that community-centric environmentalism, climate change, environmental justice, research and information, youth involvement and policymaking were the main themes discussed across 76 episodes and 6 podcasts. The eco-linguistic CDA exposed unwholesome and restorative ecocultural identities emerging out of conversations about economic growth and indigenous ecological knowledges. The study contributes to scholarship on podcasts as media for African environmental communication and, most importantly, provides evidence for environmental professionals in the region to base their work on restorative indigenous ecocultural identities of African communities.

Date of Award	2026
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science