Who Listens To Talk Radio? -- Chicago Tribune

Right-wing radio hosts appeal to disappointed men. Liberal hosts will need their own niche market to succeed.

To listen to Limbaugh or to the latest talk-radio rage, the aptly named Michael Savage (formerly Michael A. Weiner), is to be struck by how little time they spend on political discourse. Instead, they assail their liberal enemies.

The assaults are often colorful, sometimes funny and occasionally deserved but rarely analytical or logical. Like the hellfire and damnation preachers of yore, radio talkers cater to the audience's social resentments. It's niche marketing.

Disgruntled people

The niche is disappointed people, mostly men. Andrew Kohut, the highly regarded pollster for Times-Mirror, has described "the typical Limbaugh listener" as a "white male, suburbanite, conservative [with a] better-than-average job but not really a great job. Frustrated with the system, with the way the world of Washington works. Frustrated by cultural change. Maybe threatened by women."

Somebody, in short, who is not as rich, powerful or famous as he thinks he should be, and who wants to blame outside forces. The talk-show hosts help. They blame cultural (but rarely economic) elites and the government for the world's ills and regularly reinforce the listener's sense of being scorned and ridiculed.

Controversial article argues that in order to be sucessful, liberal talk radio would have to find a similar "social pathology" to which it appeals.

I don't know. I am sensing a need for a liberal optimist creed combined with an attack on "Greedy Bastards". We Won. Democracy and Liberalism Won, Why aren't we seeing the benefits? Greedy Republican Bastards? Of course, this doesn't build bridges and democratic tolerant discourse. Maybe after the realization that "they" lie, cheat and steal, are unmitigated hypocrites not bound by morality and the rule of law, liberals will fight back for a better world.

I'm just trying liberal social pathology on to see how it fits.