A Critical Analysis of Gender and Power in Contemporary Hausa Radio Drama

Radio drama in Hausa language has a long tradition of popular entertainment and social messaging in northern Nigeria, and contemporary productions engage increasingly with contested social questions including gender relations, domestic authority, and women's education. This study conducts a critical discourse and content analysis of gender and power dynamics in contemporary Hausa radio drama broadcasts, examining how gender roles are constructed, contested, and negotiated in scripted narrative contexts. A qualitative analytical design was employed, applying critical discourse analysis and feminist media theory to a corpus of 24 Hausa radio drama episodes broadcast across four northern Nigerian radio stations in 2023. Episodes were transcribed and analysed for character gender distribution, power dynamics in dialogue, narrative agency of male and female characters, and the resolution of gender-related conflicts. Audience reception data from focus group discussions with 35 radio drama listeners in Sokoto and Katsina supplemented the textual analysis. Findings reveal that while recent Hausa radio drama has introduced more educated and professionally active female characters, narrative structures consistently return to resolutions where female characters' autonomy is subordinated to male or familial authority, encoding an ideological ambivalence between progressive gender representation and conservative normative resolution. Male characters retain dominant narrative agency in conflict resolution episodes. Audience reception data suggest that women listeners appreciate representations of female aspiration while also expecting narratives to maintain culturally recognisable norms. The study recommends gender-responsive content development training for Hausa radio drama writers and producers. Keywords: Hausa radio drama, Gender, Power, Critical discourse analysis, Feminist media.