There are different philosophical pedestals that contribute towards the formulation of a research design. Creswell (2009:5) uses the term “philosophical worldviews” to describe the philosophical fundamentals on which research is based. Creswell (2009) identifies four of these worldviews. These are post-positivist, social constructivism, advocacy or participatory and pragmatism. This study is aligned to the social constructivism which is often combined with interpretivism.
Interpretivism is grounded on a “life-world ontology” that claims that all observation is mutually philosophical and value-laden. Furthermore, enquiry of the communal realm is not and cannot be the chase of an isolated impartial actuality (Ponelis, 2015). Epistemologically, the interpretivist paradigm is of the view that people’s understanding of authenticity is a societal creation of human performers. Interpretivist researchers believe that there are no correct or incorrect theories and this study accepts all the interpretations that came from the participants.
Constructivism “focuses primarily on identifying multiple values and perspectives through qualitative methods” (Merthens, 2015). This study uses the qualitative research design. Johnson, Onwuegbuzie and Turner (2007) are also of the view that constructivism is connected to qualitative research. It is a case study of the forces and interactions that take place in production of radio content by a particular station. The case study is made up of 20 cases and National FM Mbare studios is the case site. Constructivist researchers basically use qualitative methods of data collection and interviews are part of the methods. Open-ended questions are mainly used in order to allow multiple meanings from participants. This method helped in strengthening this study as the participants in this study managed to give their views about their endeavour to broadcast in their respective languages.
Social constructivism is research philosophy that is based on an understanding of phenomena in the world they live and work. This study fits well into the social constructivism as it investigates how indigenous small linguistic radio presenters work and live. It assumes individuals have multiple and subjective meanings of their experiences. This was also seen in the study as different participants had different opinions on what was happening and how radio content should be produced. The researcher then analyses the “complexity of views rather than narrowing ideas in few categories or ideas” (Creswell, 2005:6). While the research used multiple ethnographic methods of data collection, the main method was interviews and with mainly open-ended questions. The aim of the study is to depend on the participants’ opinions on the scenario under study as much as possible. The questions are framed in such a way that they are wide-ranging and broad to enable participants to form the sense of a condition, usually copied in deliberations and dealings with other individuals. Frequently, these subjective meanings are generally discussed communally and traditionally through interface with others and over cultural and historical standards that function in people’s lives. The subjects for this study all belong to the ethnic minorities and share cultural and historical norms. These affected their individual perceptions as well as interpretations of their working and living conditions which in turn lead to subjective multiple interpretations. For instance, the Chewa, Tonga, Shangani Venda and Kalanga have better language rights and coverage on the radio station. This means that their interpretations of the operations are different from Barwe, Chikunda, Doma and Hwesa who have had been subjugated for a long time.
Constructivist investigators centre on the precise circumstances in which individual’s work and live. This thesis examines not only the working conditions of journalists but also their living state of affairs.
This is done through observing their behaviour as well as their physical outlook. Questions about their level of education, salaries, working conditions and other personal information were asked to determine their living conditions. Again, as postulated by the constructivist paradigm, the study shows that the participants acted as a team on a number of issues that were discussed. Researchers also look at the processes of collaboration among these individuals. The approach is subjective also because researchers’ experiences form understanding of the situation.
Researchers also situate themselves in the study to recognise how their explanation drift from their personal, cultural and historical experiences. The researcher developed interest in the marginalised people after carrying out a gender-based study on how vernacular radio stations produce programmes that promote gender equality (Ndawana, 2012). After realising that Radio Zimbabwe and National FM do not promote gender equality, the researcher then went on to investigate how National FM democratically promote language rights for indigenous minorities (Ndawana and Muromo, 2012). The researcher then decided to go further to explore how the radio station is producing content for the minorities. The institutional ethnography and its “thick description” (Geertz, 1973) goes deeper in investigating the feasibility of having one radio station broadcasting in 18 languages. The researcher’s previous inquiries were using interviews and content analysis only. This study might have some element of subjectivity on the part of the researcher since her previous studies in the same field show that National FM was not fully representing ethnic minorities. However, observation and content analysis assisted the researcher in trying to be flexible and objective. The constructivist paradigm leads to theory generation or pattern of meaning and this study has established that the radio station promotes those languages which have a higher number of speakers and those with fewer speakers continue to be dominated.