Tracing the translation of community radio news in South Africa: An actor-network approach

News in community is a complex process that occurs in highly multilingual contexts that are bound by specific temporal and spatial constraints. These time constraints are not only related to the need to be first, but also result from constraints regarding language competency and the availability of technology, infrastructure, and manpower. Spatial constraints include the specific characteristics of radio news, for example, localised content and a certain number of news stories, for which news writers make use of multiple sources in multiple languages. These sources undergo various forms of transformation between and/or within different language(s) (intra- or interlingually), the sources being verbally written down and/or verbally spoken. These transformations are informed by the particular attributes of writing for radio and writing for the ear. The characteristics of community radio in terms of participation, involvement and a focus on local content in local languages, play a significant role in the process of translating the news for a specific news audience.