Can civilization survive Talk Radio?

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Through the ages, humankind has learned to handle some volatile tools:

Fire. Fire is essential and we plan to keep it. But we have rules that keep fire where fire is supposed to be, and provide escape routes to flee out of control fire.

Explosives and gun powder. We don't get rid of them but we keep the mayhem at a minimum through safe practices and some rules.

Engines. First we had steam engines. Nasty rascals if you don't design them right and manage them with respect and safety.

Engines. Next time you are near some antique vehicles, take a good look at cars from the 20s, the 30s and the 40s. Imagine a head-on collision or a roll-over accident in one of those old beautiful workhorses compared to wrecking one of today's air-bagged crumple-zone vehicles.

And now we behold Talk Radio. Talk radio apparently a bit like fire, explosives, steam engines and fast automobiles all rolled into one. It is a tool we want to keep, but if we don't learn to use it with respect and care, it will cripple and kill civilization.

Take a look at the political scene and government in the United States from the end of World War II up to today. We no longer have "statesmen" who can gather in the halls of government and create workable government. We have monolithic party systems and a populace that seems to believe that any elected official that gets out of line with official party dogma must be removed from office.

And when did "solid wall party politics" come into being and what keeps it in vogue? Hmmmm. During the same period Talk Radio as we know it today came into being.

 

[listener-in]

A couple more tools to add to your theme: water and money. If present in excess and not controlled, both can flow to places where they can do much damage. I suggest that even more damaging than talk radio – which despite its proportionate influence, still doesn’t drown out more reasonable voices – is the Supreme Court’s decision to open the sluicegates to unlimited political spending with its Citizens United ruling. This provides the wealthiest interests with the ability to wield their freedom of speech so overwhelmingly that it devalues the free speech of ordinary citizens, rendering it just about meaningless.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't know...it's been my experience that when in the heat of battle, passion trumps money. Consider the US in Vietnam. Consider the Egyptians vs their government. Consider the tea party vs the GOP. Passion trumps money. That still doesn't mean there's a level playing field. Because the majority of people can't act on their passion. They have full time jobs, families, and other obligations. So a small minority with time and passion can do a lot to devalue the free speech of ordinary citizens, rendering it just about meaningless.

Getting back to the original question, I think a big part of it is if people act civilized. There was a great commentary at cnn last week:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/26/opinion/frum-broken-government/index.html

Over the past hundred years, we treated government as professionals, doing the job we pay them to do. Then ideologies got involved. They no longer view themselves as professional legislators, but temporary representatives of their ideologies. The problem with that is you can't govern if you don't compromise, and ideologues don't compromise. So that's why we're messed up.

Talk radio survives because people with like ideologies stick together, and form a ratings base that keeps these shows on the air. A lot of that is driven by passion, not pursuit of knowledge and scholarship. If we really wanted to discuss politics, and subtract passion, all of these shows would be gone in a minute. But passion drives ratings, ratings drive dollars, and dollars allow us to eat.

 

[listener-in]

So a small minority with time and passion can do a lot to devalue the free speech of ordinary citizens, rendering it just about meaningless.....

......and a small minority with time passion and lots of money can do it much more effectively.

 

[TheBigA]

Well yeah...you pay lots of other people to do what you want.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I suggest that even more damaging than talk radio – which despite its proportionate influence, still doesn’t drown out more reasonable voices – is the Supreme Court’s decision to open the sluicegates to unlimited political spending with its Citizens United ruling.

Money and politics is a tangent to the main focus of the question I have posed. I became fascinated with "Citizens United" about the same night "Corporations are people, too!" became (temporarily) the cattle call of the Presidential Debates. I engaged a young lawyer who is a political chairman in my county about CU. He pointed out to me that the Supreme Court ruled exactly as they should have, given the Constitution, its Amendments, and laws passed in the last 220 years by congress. I looked up his citations and then beat Google to death for a couple of days. I'm no lawyer, but I am amazed with the "verbal journey" this nation has taken for over 200 years that affect this topic and there has been little or no PUSHBACK on the topic. Let's save that discussion for another day, another topic for it get's very partisan. I am in hopes we can purse THIS TOPIC is a more mechanical sense without getting into political squabbles.

I began selling radio advertising back in the era when many hometown stations were being built as THE FIRST STATION in town. We weren't talking ratings. WE were selling the very basic concept: You can talk about something on the radio, people will listen, and if you repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, people will eventually respond. And we got car dealers to try it and they found out they could actually sell cars. We got grocers to try it and they found they could sell eggs and watermelons and ground beef. My favorite was a small town department store operator who would go to the shipping/receiving dock about noon time and find that a BALE of irregular wash cloths had just arrived. He would call and place an order for TEN commercials in the next three hours to reach the sewing machine ladies at the local factory before they got off work.

For close to a hundred years we have been going to businessmen and telling them that people listen to what is said on the radio, and they act based on what they hear.

And yet, when we suggest that endless hours of talk radio might influence people to act on what they hear, the reply comes back: "Oh no. People are not influenced to take action based on hearing something on the radio."

 

[TheBigA]

And yet, when we suggest that endless hours of talk radio might influence people to act on what they hear, the reply comes back: "Oh no. People are not influenced to take action based on hearing something on the radio."

The difference between then and now: More than one radio station in a town. More than a few media choices in a town. And Burger King, who taught people they could "have it your way." Put that line of thinking with the "me generation," and you have people who want their media their way.

So what that means is that people will take action based on something they hear on the radio...but only if it was something they were going to do anyway. It won't change their minds. But if they're looking for a way to demonstrate their feelings, such as attending a demonstration, or buying a product they want, they will take that action based on the radio. But if they aren't interested in conservative talk, they won't hear what's being said, and therefore won't take action.

 

[TheBigA]

Let me add one more thing to put this in context: Talk radio is one of the most successful formats in radio. But in any given market, all of the talk stations put together may only attact less than 10% of the people who use radio. And of that 10%, how many would you imagine are listening faithfully to every word being said? Maybe a third? Maybe more, depending on the host and the issue he's discussing. My point is that talk radio is very important for a small minority of people. A fraction of another fraction. There aren't many stations that attract double digit shares any more. That's another difference between radio today and 30 years ago. Back then, you had a few stations with a lot of listeners. Now you have a lot of stations each with a small chunk of listeners.

I'm always amazed at the things I read on these message boards about (1) small music playlists, (2) the amount of VT or lack of local DJs, or (3) how all the music sounds the same. But typically all those comments from people who listen to one format. They have never turned the dial to hear another station or another genre of music. If they did, they'd discover there's a whole different world that exists in their home town, and they know nothing about. How cool would it be to go to a concert or a play by some you don't know, that might open your mind to something you'd never considered. That, by the way, was the concept behind NPR's flagship radio show. Hearing points of view you don't agree with, hearing music you've never heard, hearing about places you've never been, and talking about things you know nothing about. That's All Things Considered. But in today's world, opening one's mind to something else is viewed as liberal, thus bad. So instead, this small group of people listen to the same talk radio hosts who express very predictable points of view about subjects they agree on. And then some of them run for political office, and for the first time in their life, confront people who are different from them, who have a different point of view, and are forced to work together. The conclusion? Having it "your way" means you never get to try it "their way," which means you never learn how to live with others.

 

[Open Source]

Party politics and partisanship have been around since people figured out how to govern themselves. Politicians being jerks has been around 1 day less than party politics. Just ask Julius Caesar.

There is nothing going on now that hasn't been going on for thousands of years. The only difference is the common man has access to seeing it 24 hours a day, and while talk radio is a part of that, it's not the problem. If there even is a problem. I'd contend that it's just the way things are, have been, and always will be. No amount of hand wringing over "lack of bipartisanship" is going to change that fact.

 

[country24]

I like your analogy of talk radio to a tool. That's exactly what it is. And like all tools, it's neither good nor bad, it's just well used or poorly used. A master carpenter can use a hammer and saw to build useful and beautiful things. An irresponsible, incompetent or malicious person can do a lot of damage with the same tool.

One really good feature of talk radio that's absent in a lot of tools is that it has a safety valve. In fact , it IS a safety valve. It's a place where callers can let off steam anonymously with little chance of actually hurting anyone.

It's also a valuable tool for free speech. Liberal speech, conservative speech, libertarian speech, or whatever kind of speech the listeners choose to use it for. And it is the listeners who make that choice. Talk show hosts of every political stripe are a dime a dozen. What kind of talk shows are on the air depends entirely on what listeners choose to listen to.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

There is nothing going on now that hasn't been going on for thousands of years. The only difference is the common man has access to seeing it 24 hours a day, and while talk radio is a part of that, it's not the problem. If there even is a problem. I'd contend that it's just the way things are, have been, and always will be. No amount of hand wringing over "lack of bipartisanship" is going to change that fact.

I think you and I are describing two different things about the political scene. You are describing the rowdiness, the nastiness, the little white lies and rumors, the dirty tricks. That phenomena runs a bit hotter at times, calms down at times. But indeed, raw, down-and-dirty politics has been with us forever. I don't like it, but I don't contest the fact.

The observation I am making is that John Boehner knows the every single Republican is going to vote one way and Nancy Pelosi knows that every single Democrat is going to vote the other way. Sometimes there will be a handful of rebels on votes that have been decided are not "party critical".

The observation that I am making is that back home on mainstreet, cirtizens are not jumping up and down screaming: "I elected you to go to Washington and represent me wisely. Sometimes that means voting with the party, sometimes that means voting in opposition to your own party." They used to give instructions like that.

The observation that I am making is that back home on main street, I can go to a Sunday School class, a Rotary Meeting, a Chamber of Commerce meeting, or a yacht club meeting and I know if I throw a political comment up in the air I can tell you in advance what every one in the room is going to say. And there will be only two answers to any question: the one given by the left and the one given by the right. There used to be some "switch hitters" in groups like that. The would be with this group on some topics and with that group on other topics, and stand alone now and then on a few topics.

This tendency for "party loyalty" or "issue loyalty" has ebbed and flowed through the ages. You might have to go back to the Reformation Era when men like Martin Luther and John Calvin walked the earth to find a role model for what we do today. Back then most political issues were decided by the church which was a franchise of the local prince, and the penalty for being on the wrong side of a political issue was to be burned at the stake. (Julius Ceasar told me one time that in his day the penalty was "being lunch for the lions."

Now here is the flaw in my argument that News/Talk Radio (and cable TV) is the problem. The last 40 years has also been the era when the micro-computer arrived on desks everywhere. We now have the ability to sort through voting records and Google for misbehavior which makes for good rumors and dirty tricks. Elected representatives and senators know that "the data base never sleeps" so they feel that pressure to 'stay on the reservation'.

 

[Silkie]

So as long as it is touchy feely, and people are saying what you want to hear, "free wheeling" discussion is a good thing? But only on those terms?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

So as long as it is touchy feely, and people are saying what you want to hear, "free wheeling" discussion is a good thing? But only on those terms?

Where in the world did that comment, that logic(?), come from?

Where does it fit into what anybody has said in this thread?

The people who are playing a "touchy feely" game, the people who are saying what the audience want to hear, are the hosts of Talk Radio, both Conservative AND Liberal.

My position is that if we are going to have Talk Radio we should abandon the current touchy-feely and start saying things that makes sense, thing that work, things that are truthful.

OH MY! I'm sorry. I lost my head for a moment.

Of course we all knows Talk Radio audiences, both Right and Left, want to be fed the pablum they already believe. We can mess up the recipe with the injection of honesty and logic.

Which brings me back to my original question (the topic): Can civilization survive Talk Radio (if it continues in it's current genre?

 

[quadraphonic]

My position is that if we are going to have Talk Radio we should abandon the current touchy-feely and start saying things that makes sense,

Apparently, the things the hosts say make sense...to their audience

thing that work,

It works...for their audience

things that are truthful.

They are truthful...to their audience

Why wouldn't all these qualifications (make sense, work, truthful) apply to all the other formats? The other formats reach 90% of listeners in most cities. Talk radio 10% or so, typically. Why only talk radio?

In order to make sense, work, and be truthful, the host(s) would have to come to some kind of firm conclusions about things before presenting it on the show, in order to know what the logical end result they are seeking should be. Otherwise, the whole effectiveness of 'talk radio as GRC proposes it' is blunted.

Yeah, 'free-wheeling discussion' is great, but it's not going to go far if it's 'truly free-wheeling.' It's only supposed to feel free-wheeling...to the audience.

Which brings me back to my original question (the topic): Can civilization survive Talk Radio (if it continues in it's current genre?

Civilization has much greater challenges than talk radio, even in its current genre.
Just as far as radio goes, there's a 9x greater audience out there happy with their station's form of pablum.

 

[quadraphonic]

BTW, civilization will also survive baggy pants, country music, reality shows, the demise of print newspapers, the current crop of politicians, the move to digital broadcasting, all manner of famine, pestilence, and war, and most likely, everything else, until the fullness of time. It might not look the same as our American society right now, but then again, ours doesn't look like my parents', or your parents', or their parents', or George Washington's parents', at least not totally. It'll still be some kind of civilization to come out through all those things, because someone always wants to be the boss in any situation.

 

[Holland Cooke]

"BE CAREFUL with what you hear on Talk Radio!"

http://open.salon.com/blog/holland_cooke/2011/09/28/be_careful_with_what_you_hear_on_talk_radio

 

[MC]

90% + of talk radio is conservative, and Obama won. How influential is it? In fact the Obama administration was using Limbaugh as a political gimick for a while, realizing he was not that popular with most people. Limbaugh, Miller did make it on NFL. Beck is gone, off the TV along with Savage and Limbaugh. Hank Williams goes on Fox and Friends, says Obama is like Hitler and is off ESPN. Talk radio is a niche market, it is not mainstream in the country as a whole.