Apport des émissions de la radio Buntu sur l’entrepreneuriat des jeunes dans la région de Ngozi (2018-2022)

Abstract

This thesis examines the contribution of Radio Buntu programmes to youth entrepreneurship in Ngozi Province, Burundi, over the period 2018-2022. It aims to determine how these programmes contribute to young people’s access to information and training, changes in their entrepreneurial attitudes and behaviours, and transformations in the ways they think and act within their communities. The research adopts a mixed-methods approach with a sequential exploratory design (Creswell, 2015), drawing on three sources of data: a questionnaire administered to 400 young entrepreneurs, semi-structured interviews with 18 Radio Buntu staff members, and testimonies collected from 22 regular listeners of the station. The analysis is based on five theoretical frameworks: agenda-setting theory (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), solutions journalism (Bornstein, 2021; Weber, 2019), cultivation theory (Gerbner, 1969), empowerment theory (Freire, 1970; Zimmerman, 1995), and social change theory (Iñigo Retolaza, 2011). The results show that 95.89% of the young respondents listen to Radio Buntu programmes, with 82.19% doing so regularly and consistently. Furthermore, 83.33% use the programmes to obtain information for their entrepreneurial activities, 75.76% report being motivated to save, and 92% indicate that they have acquired new areas of innovation. Nine documented entrepreneurial trajectories confirm the causal chain information → motivation → action → outcome. The establishment of Radio Listening Groups (GER) in 2021 also transformed individual listening into spaces for economic mobilisation, mutual support and partnerships among young entrepreneurs, while encouraging their active participation in the station’s programmes. The analysis of the findings through the five theoretical frameworks shows that Radio Buntu programmes serve simultaneously as a channel for information and training in entrepreneurship, a catalyst for changes in individual attitudes and behaviours, and a driver of collective transformation. These results confirm the research hypotheses, fill a gap in Burundian and African literature on community media and youth entrepreneurship, and open avenues for interprovincial comparative and longitudinal research.