Sports Talk Radio
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highly interactive, immediately responsive, and adaptable social media such as
Twitter and Facebook? Easy access to these types of formats via cell phones and
Wi-Fi devices allows users to interact with others instantaneously regardless of
location and time, perhaps diminishing radio’s currency and its significance in
popular culture.
However, the very simplicity of radio in comparison to new media might be
to its advantage in creating community. For instance, while the internet’s
“enormous social complexity” (Yan, 2006, p. 418) has tremendous value, this
can also be overwhelming in scope for newer users. This indeed might allow
radio to gain some advantage with individuals, groups, and/or communities who
are newer or less sophisticated in using other technology, while still integrating
these developments for the more technologically savvy. The internet and other
highly mobile media forms allow technologically-adept listeners to stream live
radio, listen to previously recorded podcasts, or to call into the shows as a
participant. Sports radio talk shows increasingly pitch these strategies into their
marketing approach.
Radio’s advantage is in its established history with listeners and widespread
accessibility (Owens, 2006). Ninety-nine percent of U.S. households have at
least six radios, and 78 percent of drivers report using the radio almost always or
mostly, as compared to 14 percent who use cell phones with this regularity, the
next most common device (Arbitron, 2003; 2008). With the ever increasing
reliance on drive time, the sports talk radio audience is a prime candidate for
creating community. Listening habits show that in-car listening to radio has been
increasing, while home and office listenership has decreased (Arbitron, 2003).
The more isolated social location of the car might well influence people’s
interest in bonding and bridging activities, as their listenership gives a sense of
connecting to a shared identity.
In addition to the common identity, it is necessary to define the sports talk
radio show’s capacity as a relational community that does not require
geographic proximity. Certainly shared interests help establish this audience as a
community, but more than that, communities also require that relationships be
possible. In addition to whatever common interests and connection exists,
relationships require some amount of interaction and interdependent activity
(Aronson, 2006; Rovai, 2002).
While interaction and interdependence might be implied more than real for
most listeners, the pattern of listening contributes to an inferred sense of
relationship and community. A sports talk radio program occurs in a regular slot
that can be routinized into listeners’ daily activities, necessitating some
commitment to a time and likely a place. Although this might be limiting in
some senses, it also causes listeners to establish a habit of connecting with the
particular show and audience of fellow fans. Regular listeners to live radio enjoy
the unpredictability of a live event which might yield a new popular culture
marker (Owens, 2006). An unusually entertaining guest might be the topic of