Posted on 03/31/2004 1:11:12 AM PST by kattracks
Second Quarter 2003
The Problem With Liberal Talk Radio
Scott Hogenson
The Buckley School
CNSNews.com / Cybercast News Service
Growing segments of official Washington, the Democratic Party and broadcasting are giving greater consideration to the idea of a 'liberal talk radio' network.
With commercial talk radio dominated by conservatives, liberals began musing in earnest about creating a political counterpart after the historically atypical results of the 2002 midterm elections.
The theory is simple: create and distribute talk radio programming that can counterbalance the impact of Rush Limbaugh and other notable conservatives who people the radio dial - and it can impact electoral results.
This concept isn't entirely new. In the 1990s, Jim Hightower and Mario Cuomo both launched "liberal talk radio" programs, yet both failed to generate the ratings that constitute commercial success. Alan Colmes is the rare exception, but he has since become better know for his migration to television and his counterpoints to Sean Hannity.
One reasonable response to the Hightower/Cuomo failures is to analyze the programming and business aspects of those ventures, correct any perceived errors, re-launch and enjoy a greater measure of success.
Business plans, personalities, time slots and other factors notwithstanding, however, there is a much larger and more complex challenge facing political liberals who wish to penetrate the talk radio market. Simply stated, liberals are not wired for talk radio.
Put another way, there is an insufficient psychographic base for liberal talk radio to succeed and grow the way conservative talk radio has.
This is by no means meant as a slight to those who lean to the left on matters political. Rather, it's a conclusion based primarily on the study of personality types pioneered by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, and the refinements of some of Jung's work by Isabel Briggs Myers and Katherine Cook Briggs.
Before laying out the broad implications of Jung's research for liberal programmers today, it's important to first examine some of his research. Jung theorized that there are distinct ways in which people perceive the world around them and make judgments about what they perceive.
Writing for Shippensburg University, Dr. C. George Boeree describes Jung's four functions of perception and judgment as the following:
Sensing: Sensing means what it says: getting information by means of the senses. A sensing person is good at looking and listening and generally getting to know the world.
Thinking: Thinking means evaluating information or ideas rationally, logically. Jung called this a rational function, meaning that it involves decision making or judging, rather than simple intake of information.
Intuiting: Intuiting is a kind of perception that works outside of the usual conscious processes. It is irrational or perceptual, like sensing, but comes from the complex integration of large amounts of information, rather than simple seeing or hearing. Jung said it was like seeing around corners.
Feeling: Feeling, like thinking, is a matter of evaluating information, this time by weighing one's overall, emotional response.
These comprise what have become widely known as the basic elements of communications style: the classic sensor, thinker, intuitor and feeler designations popularized by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
The elements of intuiting and sensing play a large role in how we perceive the world around us and become aware; the thinking and feeling elements play a similar role in how we make judgments and evaluate what we have perceived. Each of us possesses varying degrees of each of these elements, but almost all people tend to emphasize one element over the others.
For instance, a primary sensor-thinker would be more prone to have a competitive, results-oriented behavioral focus that evaluates based on logic and organization. A primary intuitor-feeler, on the other hand, would be more prone to speculation and theory that's judged by projected feelings and expression.
The behavioral characteristics of each of these styles, while broad, are nonetheless instructive in determining the potential success of any talk radio product. In Dr. Paul P. Mok's assessment of behaviors commonly associated with different communication styles, we find that careful structure is an important element of oral communications for primary thinkers; primary sensors tend to exhibit controlling, confronting and assertive traits in their oral communications.
These dominant oral communications preferences for primary thinkers and primary sensors also happen to be the stuff of good talk radio. Because it lacks visual imagery, good radio demands careful, logical structure so as to not lose the listener. In talk radio, the host must also assert control over the program or chaos ensues.
Compare the program elements of talk radio with the predominant communications preferences of primary feelers and primary intuitors. Mok's research shows that primary feelers will possess a preference for oral communications that are personal, and the intuitor is comfortable with "stream of consciousness" and associative communications.
Given the preferences of intuitors and feelers - and the functional and programming necessities of successful talk radio - it becomes apparent that talk radio is a more natural fit for primary thinkers and primary sensors.
Just as good talk radio has a natural appeal among primary sensor-thinkers, the disembodied voice and focused nature of radio is less attractive to primary intuitor-feelers. Moving beyond oral communications preferences to the behavioral comfort and discomfort zones attributed to people with different communications styles reinforces these observations.
Based on the perception elements defined by Jung, Mok's research shows us that primary sensors are more comfortable with concrete, goal-oriented situations whereas primary intuitors tend to prefer unstructured creativity.
Juxtapose these comfort zones with the needs of talk radio, and we again see that the medium plays better with sensors than intuitors. There's a reason talk radio hosts more often begin their programs with something along the lines of "This thing is happening and we're going to take a hard look at it in today's show," rather than, "I don't really know where this is going to go, but maybe you can help out."
Clearly, talk radio's appeal is naturally stronger among primary sensors than primary intuitors. The trends are very similar when considering the differences between thinkers and feelers.
Thinking and feeling - the elements that primarily govern how we make judgments - also indicate talk radio's appeal to one more than the other.
While listener calls are a critical part of any radio talk show, the number of callers who get on the air is very small compared to the universe of listeners, depriving primary feelers of the human interaction and sense of being "on stage" that Mok's research reveals they strongly prefer.
By comparison, Mok's data show that primary thinkers are prone to discomfort by interpersonal communications and prefer data collection and logical comparisons, making talk radio something of a refuge for them.
Even more broadly, research shows that sensors and thinkers most often prefer verbal messages, whereas the overall message preference among feelers is visceral, and intuitors tend to prefer visual communications. Again, we see the essence of talk radio holding stronger appeal for sensors and thinkers.
Translating these communications preferences to political ideology is more difficult, but certainly not impossible or invalid. There's little data available that directly correlates communications style to political ideology, but a review of political communications shows that conservatives and liberals often use messages that favor distinct communications preferences.
Consider the current political debate surrounding tax policy. It's not uncommon to hear a conservative argue for tax relief by stating, "Ten percent of taxpayers shoulder 50 percent of the federal tax burden," while liberals who oppose such a position can be counted upon to argue that the aforementioned tax relief is little more than "Tax breaks for the rich."
The conservative message here is structured, empirical, logical and concrete. It juxtaposes facts in an ordered, analytical attempt to make a point; traits that strongly appeal to primary sensors and thinkers.
The liberal message, on the other hand, involves traits that are social, conceptual, unstructured and project feelings. The word "rich" is imprecise and undefined, and conjures up emotions attached to the words and their imagery, all traits that appeal more to intuitors and feelers.
In another example, conservatives by and large speak of war in Iraq in terms of ousting Saddam Hussein, because he supports terrorism, is a dictator who kills his own people and defies international authority, particularly, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. These are messages that appeal to the value orientation of ethics, action and winning, which, according to Mok, is prevalent among thinkers and feelers.
Liberals who oppose military action in Iraq point out the risk of civilian casualties, consideration for Iraqi citizens, and the need for continued weapons inspections by the United Nations. Here, we see messages whose value orientation leans towards friendship, concepts and discovery, reflecting Mok's research regarding the preferences of feelers and intuitors.
Understanding that these examples are meant to be illustrative rather than conclusive, and that persons of different political persuasions can and do respond differently to a variety of messages based on circumstance, it's not unreasonable to suggest that conservatives more often tend to exhibit sensor-thinker characteristics than do liberals, and liberals more often tend to exhibit intuitor-feeler characteristics than conservatives.
For those uncomfortable with the assignation of human communications traits based on political discourse, consider the foundry in which all good political communications is forged.
Political messages in America are carefully crafted to appeal to defined constituencies. Few, if any, words are left to chance. They are most often the byproduct of costly survey and focus group data, so the words and how they are assembled and delivered is no accident. Indeed, the competent political wordsmith hammers out each phrase with calculated precision based on careful and expensive research.
We see these patterns emerging on any number of other issues about which American conservatives and liberals part ways.
The results of the 2000 presidential election have elicited from liberals cries of electoral theft; that our president has been selected, not elected. Among conservatives, most point to the rule of law and the constitutional function of the Electoral College.
On Social Security, many conservatives advocate partial privatization of the retirement program, allowing workers to make their own investment decisions with the opportunity for a greater return, while liberals more often tend to raise fears about attempts to destroy a retirement system on which America's vulnerable elderly rely.
In these cases as well, we see conservative messages that are more reliant on logic and structure to persuade, while the liberal message attempts to persuade by relying more on imprecision and emotion.
All this amounts to great difficulty for those who wish to create a liberal talk radio product that's commercially sustainable. The raw material for this product has far grater appeal with conservatives than liberals, but it's unlikely conservatives would listen to liberal discussions in sufficient numbers to make such a program a success.
The opposite side of the same coin is that liberals would presumably be extremely interested in the subjects on liberal talk radio, but many would have to overcome an innate discomfort with the medium in which the discourse occurs, decreasing the chances of commercial success.
Liberals can alter program hosts, time slots, formats, bumper music and any number of other elements germane to the talk radio genre, but they cannot alter human nature - making the prospects of successful "liberal talk radio" no more possible today than when Mario Cuomo's show went dark.
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Scott Hogenson (shogenson@mediaresearch.org) is a member of the consulting faculty for The Buckley School and executive editor of CNSNews.com / Cybercast News Service.
If Salon.com's cash burn is any indication of how they'll run things, then I highly recommend to these staffers that they should cash their checks as soon as they get them.
Rush and Sean are probably delighted. They will have much more fodder and targets for their cannons. It's nice when the enemy tells you what he is doing and where he will be.
LOL!
That's YOUR money.
Well franken proudly boasted yesterday that he hopes he GETSsued. what a stupid statement to make. shows me how unserious this whole air america nonsense really is.
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