The structure of radio audiences in the digital realm

Or… Another internal contradiction of ‘internet radio’.

Some commentators speak of radio as a ‘blind’ medium – a reference to the medium’s lack of visuals (though one questions whether these same commentators would refer to newspapers as ‘deaf’…). As a broadcasting medium, however, radio has some very obvious points of distinction from other mass media well beyond the mere fact of an implicit, rather than explicit, visuality.

When an individual tunes in to a radio station, he or she joins a body collectively configured as an audience. That ‘audience-ness’ is immediately undermined, though, by the singularity of the experience of radio listening.

Reportedly, most radio listening occurs in solitude – driving, gardening, walking, working, etc. However, despite the solitary nature of the listening environment and the personal tone of the broadcaster’s language (all good announcers talk to one person – “all you out there in radioland” is considered bad form, and demonstration of a misunderstanding of the medium), the listener is vaguely aware of a constituency of listeners all sharing in that media experience simultaneously.

Despite a proliferation of stations, there is still often a realistic basis on which to ask the water cooler question “did you hear on the radio this morning…?” – not the least of which is the fact that listeners rightly assume that the radio station they listened to was the same radio station listened to by other people they consider to be ‘like them’.

In other words, there is a basis upon which listeners assume that there is a ‘Shared Media Experience’ on which to base discussion and general social negotiation and agreement of meaning.

Listeners will, for instance, hear an on-air discussion about a news event, use that discussion to formulate their own opinions as to what that event means in their own cognitive frame – and then try those ideas out with (and sometimes against) their work colleagues and friends… which subverts and/or reinforces those opinions as a socially-constructed meaning.

Internet radio is a less (necessarily) linear medium than traditional AM/FM radio. Internet radio need not be a mass medium. It’s discrete, one-at-a-time and on-demand. In fact, the laws of mass media not only do not apply, but in fact unnnecessarily restrict internet audio content.

There is no need, for instance, for any programme to be heard simultaneously by an audience. Listeners can select their own listening schedules: download archived audio as they wish, and listen to their selected programming at their convenience. As far as socially constructed meaning in the subsequent face to face environment is concerned, the listener is on their own. Arguably, there is no such thing as an ‘internet radio audience’.

And so a vacuum is created for a new environment in which to construct that social reality and any negotiated meaning. Coincidentally, the only way to fill this void is also a key characteristic of the online media. Discussion and negotiation are the norms of internet discourse.

Manuel Castells provides a useful metaphor. He describes a ‘space of flows’ that exists online – a digital parallel to the space of places that exists in the world of the corporeal. This space of flows does not negate geography: in fact it reinforces predominance of certain geographic locales and usual flows of communication.

For instance, a British listener will likely communicate with citizens of other English-speaking nations; America is culturally prioritised by the logic of global finance capital; New Zealand perceives itself as Australia’s neighbour, not just geographically, but also culturally – and so information flows follow familiar broad patterns of interchange.

However, amongst these familiar patterns of flow, new configurations of ‘locality’ emerge that are not directly tied to proximity. Localities based on ‘communities of interest’ rather than ‘communities of place’ arise – and it is in this online digital context that shared media experience is found as it relates to internet-accessed content.

In other words, the social contexts in which ‘did you hear…?’ conversations are conducted are psychologically proximate rather than physically proximate. Negotiation of meaning occurs within like-minded individuals who gather to share notes, swap links, and compare interpretations of mediated information on everything from general news to topics of very specific interest.

Arguably, all radio audiences are configured virtually (Look around when you listen to the radio. Do you see an audience?) – but that virtuality is converted to actuality, independent of the means of distribution itself. Conversely, in an internet-mediated audio environment, the very medium around which an audience can be said to gather as individuals is also the medium through which the community of ‘audience-ness’ is constructed.

In short, if the notion of the Shared Media Experience (the watercooler talk) is to be valued at all, then AM and FM radio is understood in terms of the people that are nearest to you geographically… whereas internet audio forms are understood in terms of the people that are nearest to you ideologically.