The Long Road from the Village Radio to Viral Posts

A Malawian Story

Every evening in the 1990s, Novahiwa, a young boy in Mulanje, watched his father pedal home from the fields. Dust clung to his trousers, sweat lined his brow, but his first request was always the same: “Bring me the radio.” His wife would place a steaming mug of tea in his hands while the old black transistor crackled to life. A familiar baritone filled their home: “This is MBC Radio 1. It’s time for the news.” In that moment, the whole village paused. Farmers adjusted their planting schedules based on the weather forecast. Teachers jotted down government announcements for the next morning’s lesson. Traders calculated how to price their goods after hearing about new policies.

This was Malawi’s original public sphere, a single broadcast voice anchoring citizens in a common reality. As political scientists like Jürgen Habermas might say, it was a shared communicative space where information shaped identity, social trust and collective action. And as any public relations scholar would argue, control of that space gave government not only power but also legitimacy.

Fast forward to 2025. Novahiwa is now a middle-aged minibus owner with a smartphone in his pocket. The radio sits dusty on a shelf. He still checks the news, but now it is a torrent: WhatsApp groups, TikTok videos, Facebook lives. With a cheap handset, some data, and a camera, anyone can break a story. Information travels faster than minibus fares rise. In sociological terms, the gatekeeping function once held by state media has been shattered.

This shift has a double edge. Economically, the cost of entry into the news market has collapsed, an example of what Joseph Schumpeter would call creative destruction. But psychologically, as Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman shows, humans are prone to cognitive ease. We believe what is repeated, not what is true. A well-crafted fake story will outrun its correction and by the time the truth arrives, the damage is done.

During the current elections, Novahiwa scrolls through his phone while waiting for passengers at the depot. Influencers have already declared winners and branded others as criminals long before the Malawi Electoral Commission has tallied the votes. In his WhatsApp groups, rumours mix with opinion and hearsay. Some of his friends are furious, others jubilant, but few are checking sources. What political scientists call the informational environment of democracy has fragmented into echo chambers where unverified claims travel faster than official results.

For communicators, public administrators, and policy makers, this is not just a media problem. It is a governance problem. When 2 million untrained citizen-journalists can publish instantly, the old top-down model of public information no longer works. As sociologist Manuel Castells writes, “Power now lies in the ability to shape networks.” In Malawi’s case, the blessing of technology has also become a curse, a vibrant, open information market that erodes trust, amplifies misinformation, and can destabilize democratic processes.

Yet all is not lost. The lesson from Novahiwa’s journey from his father’s transistor radio to his own smartphone is that communication must evolve as society evolves. Strategic communication and public relations professionals must become builders of trust networks, not just transmitters of press releases. They must design systems for verification, rapid response, and civic education. They must work with platforms, educators, and even influencers to restore the credibility of facts.

In public administration, this means recognising that information is infrastructure just like roads, schools, and hospitals. Without credible, trusted information, citizens cannot plan, markets cannot function, and democracy cannot deliver. In economics, this is called reducing information asymmetry. In psychology, it is building heuristics of trust. In sociology, it is sustaining social capital.

As the election results trickle in, Novahiwa takes a deep breath. He remembers his father’s evenings with the radio when news was slower but clearer. Today, he waits for the official announcement from the Malawi Electoral Commission. That patience, fragile as it is, is now the frontline of Malawi’s democratic resilience.

This is the challenge for every communicator, policy maker and social scientist in the country: to ensure that the story of Malawi’s democracy does not become a casualty of its own information revolution.