The Role of South African Streamed Soap Operas in Contemporary Cultural

Abstract

This chapter is bent at, through audience perspectives, examining the role of over-the-top media; precisely, streamed South African soap operas in the creation of hybrid cultures and the impact of these cultures on the nation building exercise in Zimbabwe. This qualitative chapter utilises the uses and gratifications theory and the reception theory as theoretical toolkits. Its empirical data is drawn from in-depth interviews with sampled Zimbabwean journalists who stream South African soap operas. The chapter fleshes out that South African soap operas have cultivated new and hybrid cultures in Zimbabwe—among them acceptance of the LGBT community, acceptance of ATR, the use of different languages during communication processes and the appreciation of traditional dressing among others. Empirical data from the participants further exhibits that these hybrid cultures have subsequently become an ideological engineering hub for nation building motives as they carry discourses that can be used for unifying the Zimbabwean people.