Public space, private face: Audience construction at a noncommercial radio station

Abstract

This study examines the discursive construction of audience identity at a public radio station in New Mexico. Seventy‐one listener letters printed in the station's newsletter over a one‐year period are examined. As a representation of the station's listeners, the letters establish a range of preferred signifiers which frame the audience in particular ways. In turn, the discursive nature of the letters generates a range of sentiments though which individual listeners selectively position themselves within the discourse. Space plays a significant role in this process, because much of the printed discourse is driven by notions regarding the geographical space served by the station's signal.