'Misreading romance' The BBC World Service Afghan radio soap opera and the politics of production and consumption

Abstract

This article examines the politics of radio production and consumption in the context of a BBC World Service radio soap opera produced for Afghanistan. Analysis focuses upon romantic narratives promoted within the production by expatriate British BBC trainers and their subsequent rejection by conservative sections of the Afghan audience and amendment by locally employed Afghan scriptwriters and producers. The article elaborates on the cross-cultural negotiation evident between these two creative forces, as well as the extent to which audience conservatism acts back upon the production, in the process framing what is permissible in terms of the cultural propriety of melodramatic and especially romantic content.