Growth of Talk Radio

In the late 1980s and the 1990s, talk radio burst into the public consciousness. Talk radio is many things: a radio programming format; a means of mass electronic communication; a business; a type of entertainment or "edutainment;" and a vehicle and a forum for the expression of cultural and political anxieties and conflicts. This article summarizes and analyzes some talk radio's most salient aspectsits origins and growth, its political and cultural impact, the sources of its appeal and its implications. The proliferation of talk radio mirrors various societal trends, especially the discordant temper of the times. Its excesses are rooted in the deep sense of alienation and frustration felt by certain groups of Americans.

Talk radio had its genesis as a distinctive genre of broadcasting in 1960 when radio station KABC in Los Angeles decided to gamble with an alltalk format. For nearly three decades, it led a precarious existence, which reflected the difficulties faced by radio networks and stations after the advent of commercial television. Preempted from prime time by the automated equipment and nationally syndicated program services of the major television networks, radio was threatened with extinction. It survived by living off the record business. It also cultivated niche audiences which were not served adequately by television. Liberated from the living room by various technological developments, radio "was free to diversify, . . . to

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and Limbaugh in particular have a devoted following among young male adults. Jack Anderson noted that "talk radio has always been conservative country" (1994, p. C 7). National Public Radio, which is oriented toward the status quo, has its own Talk of the Town show. An establishment liberal, Mario Cuomo, started this summer a national "thought talk" radio program; however, those "liberals" who have generated high ratings on talk radio usually have promoted populist themes and evince a "plague on both your houses" attitude toward the political and media elites. ("Plain Talk", 1995, pp. 1820). Sifry (1995) describes 38yearold syndicated talk show host, Tom Leykin, as prolabor, prochoice, prodrug legalization and anticapital punishment but also as a xenophobe and a supporter of California's immigrantbashing Proposition 187 (p. 482). Implications Because of the association of many talk show hosts with conservative and antiestablishment causes, they have been subjected to various criticisms from the left and the center. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, President Bill Clinton inveighed against unnamed "loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as pos

Category: Psychology - G