| Contents > Talkback radio: power and perception by Liz Gould |
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…That’s entertainment?
Not only does the profit motive of commercial stations influence program content, it is perceived to have a negative influence on the shape of public discourse. Critiques of talkback echo the oft-cited debate about distinctions between the purpose and quality of the ‘old’ media and the ‘new’ media. Broadly, the ‘old’ or ‘quality’ media, such as broadsheet newspapers, provide traditional coverage of seasoned analysis of current affairs and politics, while the ‘new’ media are often typified loosely as magazines and tabloid newspapers. Talkback radio is usually considered as an example of the ‘new’ media (see Lewis, for example, 1997).
McGregor & Browne suggest that the ‘new’ news media reverse the fact/opinion dichotomy of traditional news (in McGregor, 1996, p24). In the 1960s when talkback radio was first introduced, the concept of participatory talkback radio flouted the conventional (and restrictive) rules of access for public discourse on radio. For many years, Australian radio executives battled regulatory concerns about private citizens speaking on broadcast media, and about the quality of this discussion. The broadcasting regulator expressed concern about the ‘populist’ overtones of commercial radio, and fears of poor language usage. In contemporary talkback, questions of propriety, quality, and authority have largely been pushed aside. Rather than being based on the authority or expertise of the speaker, the motivation for participation in talkback programmes has been replaced by an emphasis on the ‘emotional’ authority of the speaker.
The importance of ‘opinion’ to the success of the talkback radio format was quickly recognised by broadcasters in the early days of the format, as talkback hosts sought to engage listeners as well as to encourage callers. Popular Melbourne broadcaster Ormsby Wilkins acknowledged the importance of combining commentary and opinion. Wilkins explained:
When I started off giving commentaries I had a great reputation for impartiality, but no audience. I soon changed that. I learned that if you are going to hold the attention of the man under the shower or the woman in the kitchen you have to be sharp and lively (Wilkins, 1975, p13).
As early talkback practitioners such as John Laws and John Pearce have recounted, when they were rude to callers, listener interest soared (see for example, Pearce, 2002). An established talkback formula has evolved where announcers are largely cast as disseminators of strongly held convictions. As Judy McGregor suggests: “the content of political talkback relies on the credibility of the host and the audience emotion generated, rather than the persuasive and logical nature of the reasoning inherent in what is said” (1996, p29). Talkback practitioners seek to evoke affective – rather than rational – responses from audience members, and listeners are encouraged to analyse political and social issues in emotive terms.
While this emphasis has attracted criticism from many commentators (as we have seen), talkback hosts instead endorse the perception that talkback is merely ‘entertainment’. John Laws’ famous comment – used as defence during the Cash for Comment trials – that he is an entertainer and not a journalist, has since been echoed by other talkback personalities. Jeremy Cordeaux, former 5DN presenter and talk-radio practitioner for over four decades, (recently) commented:
The buffoonery and the sort of redneck radio component has got some appeal to the general public - the same as a brawl during a football match, it's a bit of entertainment…But you can't call it influential, you can't call it seriously contributing to any debate or helping our decision-makers (in Ahwan, 2006).
Thus, one of the strategies for defence by the industry – as a response to allegations of undue commercial influence – has been to dismiss the agency of talkback. Yet this position is contrary: on the one hand, talkback asks to be considered only entertainment, on the other, many of these programmes purport to address serious social and political issues. Acknowledging the constraints on access for members of the public to traditional media, radio stations like talkback because it involves the listeners. Adams and Burton cynically claim that contemporary talkback hosts actively endorse the democratic potential of talkback: “[Talkback makes] claims …to the high ideal of demos. We are hearing, we are told, ‘the voice of the people’.” (Adams & Burton, 1997, pp25-26). Even Jeremy Cordeaux who dismissed talkback as ‘a bit of entertainment’ frequently referred to his own long-running program as the ‘court of public opinion’ (Gowing, 2006, p12), and declared that "[talkback] is the most powerful court in the land” (Ahwan, 2006).
Indeed, the defence of talkback radio as innocuous or simply as ‘entertainment’ underplays the significance of this form of public debate. News, current affairs, and other public issues provide a large body of programming material for contemporary talkback programs, and most of the popular morning and ‘drive-time’ metropolitan talkback programmes strongly emphasise news and current affairs material; in turn, this material lends talkback an authority and power as a media form.
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| Contents > Talkback radio: power and perception by Liz Gould |