Reaching for the Dial? Activism, Authoritarianism, Emotions, Sociopolitical Attitudes and Political Talk Radio Listening

Political talk radio (PTR) carries important implications for American politics as it reaches millions of American listeners every week. Scholars have well documented the influence of these programs on perceptions of electoral fairness, candidates and important social and political issues. However, scholars have had difficulty in identifying consistent patterns regarding which Americans tend to consume political communication, of which PTR is an important exemplar. In the case of PTR, scholars have relied heavily on basic demographic indicators such political ideology, partisan affiliation, race and gender. Furthermore, extant literature relies extensively---but not exclusively---on data from the 1990s in identifying audiences. In this study, I investigated the possibility that additional individual-level factors could be related to the tendency to listen to PTR. Specifically, I examined four key factors: authoritarian disposition (personality); attitudes toward various sociopolitical groups in society; emotions related to American presidential candidates; and political behavior that took place earlier in respondents' life cycles. Drawing on data from the Youth-Parent Socialization Study, several American National Election Studies and the 2004 National Annenberg Election Survey, I first considered each of the independent variables separately. In each analysis, I regressed talk radio listening on the relevant variable(s) while controlling for competing demographic and political variables. Results shows that Americans who evince more negative emotions toward Democratic candidates are more likely to listen, but this effect is not consistent over time. Similarly, perceived over-influence of women in society was a significant indicator in the late 1990s, but not the 2000s; those who broadly disliked members of the political left were significantly more likely to listen. Finally, a cohort of young Americans who engaged in political protest for moderate-to-conservative causes during the 1965-72 period were particularly likely to listen decades later. In analyses including all independent variables, the influence of conservative activism, misogynistic attitudes and displeasure with the political left were most robust. The results indicated that any given variable is likely to have a contingent relationship with PTR listening depending on the data employed, surrounding electoral context and changes in the nature of the talk radio format itself.