Hyderabad’s Hybrid Listeners and Their Cross-Platform Radio Repertoires
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21009/communications.8.2.5Keywords:
Radio, Hybrid Media, Listeners, Digital Media, BroadcastAbstract
Communication fragmentation across broadcast, mobile, and social platforms challenges public-service radio to remain accessible, relevant, and institutionally trusted. This study examines how Radio Pakistan Hyderabad’s digital transition is negotiated at the audience level by reinterpreting survey data from 205 listeners in Qasimabad and Latifabad. Employing a qualitative descriptive design supported by secondary descriptive statistics, the analysis reorganises the original data through a media repertoire perspective. The findings show that digital transition expands rather than replaces established listening practices. Hybrid listeners move across radio receivers, FM services, mobile phones, institutional applications, and social platforms according to situational access, everyday routines, and communicative purposes. Mobile phones operate as organising infrastructures that connect otherwise distinct channels, while individual platforms retain differentiated functions related to convenience, information, feedback, and institutional proximity. The study also indicates that the platform carrying radio content and the institution providing credibility are not necessarily identical. Digital platforms facilitate circulation and interaction, yet informational trust may remain anchored in Radio Pakistan Hyderabad. The study conceptualises hybrid listeners as audiences who coordinate cross-platform access while combining technological convenience with institutionally grounded credibility.
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