Placing Satellite Radio in the Contemporary Radio Landscape

Abstract

It is a Monday morning, 7:30 am EST, and as I get in the car to go to work (and as is my habit), I turn on the radio, hoping that during my 15 min commute National Public Radio’s (NPR) “Morning Edition” will give me something to use as a teaching moment in class that day. While this act has been part of my morning routine for many years, it is also a cultural practice involving delineations and compressions of time, space, and place. “Morning Edition” is produced in Washington D.C. and syndicated by my local NPR station. By the time I leave for work, I am not hearing “Morning Edition” broadcast live. I do, however, hear live broadcasts of regional news and announcements made by local my public radio station; thus, the broadcast is simultaneously live and pre-programmed, local and global (through syndication and streaming over the web). My car stereo receives the terrestrial signal from the local NPR station, a signal with defined spatial boundaries and limits. The frame of my car defines another spatial aspect of my morning radio routine: the listening space. If my car windows are open, the listening space expands beyond the confines of the car’s frame. The broadcast becomes part of my social space as I reflect on a particular story with a colleague later that day. Finally, as a listener to this program, I am connected to different places (spaces with meaning): some distant, some close and familiar. I am also connected to place through the regional accents of reporters and announcers, especially those from my local station. Finally, I am connected to place through the musical interludes during “Morning Edition,” which are chosen to reflect the story just reported. Even if I catch a “Morning Edition” broadcast in another context (e.g. hearing it coming from a colleague’s office) and hear those eight chords that mark the transition between broadcast segments, I immediately picture myself in a specific, familiar place: as a listener in my car.