| Contents > Talkback radio: power and perception by Liz Gould |
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Talkback radio: power and perception
Since it began in Australia forty years ago, the frequent use of talkback radio by politicians and other prominent public figures has underscored as well as underwritten the importance of this medium as a public forum. In recent years, the visibility of talkback radio has been heightened by a significant presence on other popular media: television news bulletins often feature important announcements made by Federal politicians when they appear on these radio programs, and scandals involving talkback personalities headline the daily papers. This paper examines the notions of ‘power’ and of ‘perception’ in relation to talkback radio, by considering the unique way that talkback radio combines these two factors in its daily operation. The large sums of money involved in advertising revenue, the generous remuneration of talkback personalities, the high profiles of many program guests, and the perceived influence of talkback on the public agenda, reflect the reputed power of a small number of prominent talkback hosts on metropolitan radio. Additionally, the talkback format relies heavily on the generation and dissemination of opinion; this format seeks to massage public, as well as individual, perceptions. Talkback radio is also a medium which has been criticised for its willingness to privilege sensationalism over fact – recent commentators have questioned talkback’s bias toward individual perception and away from deliberative or ‘rational’ debate.
Commercial talkback radio has long been viewed with distrust by commentators and dismissed by critics. Over the last decade, many critical accounts of talkback radio have focused on negative portrayals of the genre in terms of programme content, and approach. As Gillian Appleton acknowledges, media attention has focused on the presenters of these programmes, and their ‘right-wing, populist’ tendencies. Commenting on an article by David Marr in the Sydney Morning Herald, Bridget Griffen-Foley suggests: “The implication in the SMH, and indeed in most commentary on (especially commercial) talkback radio, is that it is invariably redneck territory” (Griffen-Foley, 2006, p8). Talkback has certainly attracted critical attention for its treatment of racial issues, as well as being criticised more generally for its method of addressing serious social and political issues.
In her assessment of talkback radio in Australia, Kate McMillan acknowledges “talkback’s propensity to focus discussion on divisive issues such as racial or sexual politics, in which ethnic, cultural and religious minorities are the focus of negative debate” (McMillan, 2005, p75). For example, Steve Mickler’s analysis of the Sattler File, a controversial talkback program in Perth, details host Howard Sattler’s persistent vilification of Aboriginal people(Mickler, 1997).
Based on a study of the media coverage of Pauline Hanson in 1996, Glen Lewis claimed “commercial talkback radio is a seeding ground for discriminations, ignorance, and prejudice in Australia, just as it has been in the US” (Lewis, 1997, p11). Almost a decade later, in an article entitled Creating Moral Panic: Australian Outrage Radio, Robert O’Sullivan declares that “outrage radio and the Shock Jock phenomenon are part of the evolution of Australian radio” (O’Sullivan in Cryle & Hiller, 2005, p117). Both Lewis and O’Sullivan expropriate a critique levelled at talkback radio’s American counterpart; ‘talk radio’ in the United States has often been characterised as sensational, brash and divisive and typified by ‘shock jocks’ such as Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern.
In their oft-cited and derisive account of commercial talkback radio in Australia, Emperors of Air, Phillip Adams and Lee Burton declare: “Talkback is the nadir of Australian media. It is characterised by sleaze and hypocrisy, by bombast and bigotry, by cynical populism and feigned rage.” (Adams & Burton, 1997, pp25-26). And based on a content-analysis of talkback radio in New Zealand, Judy McGregor similarly concluded that “the voice of this political talkback reverberates with low-level noise rather than resounds with serious or persuasive conversation” and that talkback radio programmes in that country exhibited ‘combustion rather than coherence’ (McGregor, 1996, pp32-3).
For many years critiques of talkback radio have maligned or dismissed talkback radio as ‘populist’, perfunctory or excessive. However, by focussing on the sensational aspects of the genre these critiques have often overlooked the agency of this form of communication. This paper seeks to provide context for some of the prevailing scholarly perceptions of talkback by considering the powerful commercial and political influences of this media format.
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| Contents > Talkback radio: power and perception by Liz Gould |