Conservative Talk Research Articles

The “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”: Media and Conservative Networks

The American Right's speedy political recovery after the historic 2008 election was driven in part by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck. Yet conservative media are just one key component in the broad political networks built over the past few decades. Conservative talk radio, print publications, television networks, and internet sites have numerous connections, both direct and indirect, with the think tanks, advocacy organizations, academic research centers, and foundations that develop and promote the Right's policy agenda. Progressives have acknowledged this “vast right-wing conspiracy” for years, but often demonstrate little understanding of how it actually works. In this article I remind readers of the expansive scope and shape of conservative networks. Using the rise of Tea Party populism, I demonstrate how media organizations work within these networks to revive and promote ideas and action on the Right.

Imagination and reason: rival perspectives on science

Much of the flavor of this book can be drawn from its dedication to a short list of ‘‘Scientists of Dedication and Integrity’’, which includes some of the leading climate scientists of recent years. Writing for a general readership, Powell sets out to uncover ‘‘why only half the public accept[s the] ... evidence’’ for global warming, focusing upon ‘‘deniers [who] submit climate scientists to a modern inquisition conducted not in a courtroom but on the front pages of newspapers, on right-wing radio and television, on the blogosphere, and on denier websites’’ (3). Powell, a geochemistry Ph.D. and former member of the US National Science Board, generally does a good job of explaining the fundamentals of climate science and in illuminating the institutional and ideological character of climate denialism. Although not as detailed as Oreskes and Conway’s recent Merchants of Doubt, which focused on the ‘‘template’’ for contemporary denialism provided by the Marshall Institute, Powell’s coverage of denialism is broader and more up to date. While focused upon climate science denial, Powell is also fundamentally concerned, as were Oreskes and Conway, with the broader implications of the attack on established science that climate denialism involves and its intimate association with campaigns such as that of ‘‘Creation Science’’, those against AIDs treatments, and also the effects of tobacco smoke on health. I share these concerns but am inclined to believe that the naive positivist perspective that Powell shares with much of the science community tends to nourish denialism rather than challenge it. This review elaborates this argument in light of those made by Powell. In his introduction, Powell (4) clarifies his use of the term ‘‘deniers’’.

Santorum and God's Will: The Religionization of Politics and the Tyranny of Totalitarianism

The possibility of an authoritarian and ethically dysfunctional family in the White House in 2013 certainly has caught the attention of a number of liberals and other progressives. After all, what progressive or decent conservative for that matter would support Rick Santorum’s rejection of the separation of church and state or his belief that it is better to live under the rule of a theocratic state than in a democracy? Of course, religious fanatics do not ponder these issues seriously because they get their information straight from God. One example comes from Rick’s wife, Karen, who told conservative talk show host Glenn Beck that it was ‘God’s will’ that her husband is running for president and that she felt that ‘God had big plans for Rick’.[1] And, of course, Santorum has no trouble doubting his wife because he believes that the ultimate confrontation between good and evil is akin to a religious crusade and he is the man to lead it. After all, Santorum, as he has stated publicly many times, is on a moral crusade to snuff out the work of Satan in a variety of areas extending from higher education to health care and women’s reproductive rights. For many moderate conservatives such as Rudy Giuliani, the likes of Santorum, Gingrich, Perry and Bachmann represent the flight of the current Republican Party from the real world. For Giuliani, the party has become anti-modernist. For Ed Rollins, a CNN regular and Republican Party strategist, the party has fatally turned itself into the party of Wall Street and country clubber, leading it to eventual extinction. Liberals such as Maureen Dowd and Robert Reich view the Republican leadership as either ‘barking mad’ or simply loony. As Reich points out, this is a party ‘of birthers, creationists, theocrats, climate-change deniers, nativists, gay-bashers, anti-abortionists, media paranoids, anti-intellectuals, and out of touch country clubbers [who] cannot govern America’.[2] Of course, there is a semblance of truth in all of these positions, especially in the recognition that politicians such as Rick Santorum represent a clear and present danger to promise of a real democracy in the United States. At the same time, terms such as loony, out of touch, anti-modernist, and the politicization of religion, while offering a categorical referent that highlights the extremism and fundamentalism that drives the ideological views of such candidates, run the risk of reinforcing a fatal psychologizing or a dead-end collapse into a narrow definition of religious fanaticism. Something far more serious and dangerous is unfolding in this current presidential election than the politicization of religion, a politics free from doubt, or the emergence of the loony squad. As Zygmunt Bauman points out in a different context:

Understanding the Rise of Talk Radio

AbstractThe number of radio stations airing political talk shows—predominantly conservative talk radio—has surged in the past few years. This massive change in the radio industry says something about the demand for such shows, but attributing the rise of talk radio to a corresponding rise in conservative popular opinion is misleading. We argue that this remarkable growth is better explained by the collision of two changes that have transformed the radio business: deregulation and the mainstreaming of digital music technologies. Regulatory changes have shifted much of radio production and control from local to mass production (managed by industry giants such as Clear Channel Communications) and created a context ripe for nationally syndicated hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin. Meanwhile, rapid technological changes have given consumers more control over the way they listen to music. Technologies such as MP3 players, Internet radio, smart phones, and Pandora Radio have made it more difficult for stations with a music format to be profitable. As music programming has become more problematic, many stations have developed a highly successful business model by converting to talk formats airing nationally syndicated shows.

Climate Change “Hoax”: Comment on “Climate Science in a Postmodern World”

In his Forum, Kenneth Verosub (Eos, 91(33), 291, doi:10.1029/2010EO330003, 2010) tries to explain the climate denial phenomenon as due to postmodernist misinterpretation of scientific results. Unfortunately, I fear that this is only a minor cause and that the true explanation is much more insidious, with serious ramifications for all scientists, not just climatologists. As documented in several recent publications [e.g., Mayer, 2010], climate scientists are currently bearing the brunt of a deliberate, antiscience, misinformation campaign that is financed by certain fossil fuel companies and propagated by certain conservative radio programs, television organizations, and think tanks. Verosub wonders why no one has offered an explanation for why scientists worldwide are engaged in this supposed hoax. But explanations are frequently offered on conservative talk shows. For example, I found myself listening to The War Room With Quinn and Rose last fall while driving in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area and was appalled by the scenario painted in the show by cohost Jim Quinn. Apparently, all academics are socialists. Further, the Earth is not warming—it has been getting cooler since 1999. Quinn continued with this gem: Climate warming is an international conspiracy, funded by billionaire George Soros, perpetrated by scientists everywhere, and intended to delude governments into spending vast sums of money to counter a non‐existent threat until the governments become bankrupt. Then in the ensuing chaos, socialists can take over and form a world socialist government.

Ears Wide Shut: Epistemological Populism, Argutainment and Canadian Conservative Talk Radio

Ears Wide Shut: Epistemological Populism, Argutainment and Canadian Conservative Talk Radio

Ears Wide Shut: Epistemological Populism, Argutainment and Canadian Conservative Talk Radio

Abstract.Although scholars have identified political talk radio (PTR) as an important site of political socialization, the current literature has largely failed to examine the political relevance of PTR's rhetorical strategies and has virtually ignored Canadian PTR altogether. This article addresses these gaps by analyzingAdler On Line, Canada's only nationally syndicated commercial PTR program, to show thathowCanadian PTR talks, particularly its use of populist rhetoric, plays a central role in establishing what type of political deliberation and debate is possible within it. Divided into two main sections, the article first explores howAdler On Linerenders a particular epistemological framework authoritative. The second section then analyzes the rules and norms of political expression and debate encouraged by the show's style of argutainment debate. The article concludes with a more speculative evaluation of the practical consequences as well as the theoretical and normative implications of these discursive practices.Résumé.Bien que les auteurs de recherches reconnaissent que la radio interactive politique (RIP) représente un lieu important de socialisation politique, la littérature courante dans ce domaine omet, en grande partie, d'analyser la signification politique des stratégies rhétoriques de la RIP, tout en laissant entièrement dans l'ombre les activités de RIP canadiennes. Visant à combler ces lacunes, le présent article offre, dans un premier temps, une analyse de l'émissionAdler On Line, qui est la seule émission de RIP commerciale souscrite nationalement au Canada, puis démontre quele mode d'expressiontypique adopté dans cette émission, et surtout son usage de la rhétorique populiste, ont une incidence déterminante sur le genre de délibération et de débat politiques que permet la radio parlée au Canada. L'article se divise en deux grandes parties. La première explore le cadre épistémologique particulier de l'émissionAdler On Lineetla manièredont ce cadre se voit empreint d'autorité. La seconde partie analyse les règles ou normes de débat et d'expression des opinions politiques qu'encourage le style divertissant de cette émission-débat. Pour conclure, les auteurs évaluent de façon plus spéculative les conséquences pratiques de ces formes d'expression discursive, tout comme leur incidence théorique et normative.

Big Societies, Little Platoons and the Problems with Pluralism

Conservative talk of a ‘big society’ is one more mutation of the unstable family of pluralism. It is a large family, with both benign and progressive left wing members and rogue right wing black sheep. The progressive contribution has been substantial, but pluralism is not a homogeneous ideology or set of policies, and the single word conceals stresses and irreconcilable oppositions in theory and practice. An examination of this variety gives clues to the latest contributions, and to some of the more regressive uses to which pluralism can be put. The left needs both to insist on its own major contribution to progressive pluralism, and to beware of wolves in pluralist clothing.

A Theory of Political Campaign Media Connectedness

The study of political mass communication information outlet effects has been dominated by two types of studies, those which focus on a single outlet and those which look at the comparative influence of multiple outlets. The current study seeks to advance a third study type by offering a theory of political campaign media connectedness. Three axioms are offered in this work. In addition, a series of hypotheses involving five political communication campaign information outlets (conservative political talk radio, FOX cable TV news, daily newspapers, national network TV news, debate viewing) are posited. This work emphasizes the need to understand how various information outlets function in coordination with one another to produce a potentially diverse set of direct and indirect political campaign media effects. Future lines of theoretical inquiry and empirical research are outlined.

Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture (review)

Reviewed by: Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture Molly McClain Anne Dunan-Page and Beth Lynch, eds., Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. 264 pp. Conservative talk radio hosts in the United States would have no trouble embracing Roger L’Estrange (1616–1704) as one of their own. The seventeenth-century journalist, press censor, and propagandist led vitriolic attacks on the Whig party in his London news sheet, the Observator. He spoke to the “loyal middling ranks,” including Church of England clergy and provincial Tories who chafed under what they saw as “Whig demagoguery and mob rule” (71). He was both a tool of the Tory party and an embarrassment to the late Stuart regime. The editors of Roger L’Estrange and the Making of Restoration Culture aim to look beyond the journalist’s “influential and colourful public career, and his strident public persona” (3). To that end, they have gathered together a number of interdisciplinary perspectives on the journalist and his career. The book is dedicated to the late Harold Love, author of L’Estrange’s entry in the new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and includes works by experts in English literature, history, music, and political thought. It contributes to the study of the history of the book, printing history and censorship, and political discourse in the public sphere. It also includes a comprehensive annotated bibliography of L’Estrange’s works. L’Estrange began his career as a royalist author and agitator during the Civil War. After a short exile in Holland, he returned to Cromwell’s England where he occupied himself with cultural activities. Andrew Ashbee’s “‘My Fiddle is a Bass Viol’: Music in the Life of Roger L’Estrange” describes his keen interest in music and his talent as a musician. Roger North called him “an expert violinist” (152), while John Evelyn recalled their evening spent with the violinist Thomas Baltzar (155). Later, he was accused of using music as a cover for secret talks with Cromwell—hence the nickname “Noll’s Fiddler”—but he vigorously denied the charge. [End Page 55] After Cromwell’s death in 1658, L’Estrange began a pamphleteering campaign against the Rump Parliament and radicals in general. Beth Lynch describes this formative phase of his development in “Rhetoricating and Identity in L’Estrange’s Early Career, 1659–1662.” He gained employment as surveyor of the imprimery and moved into an office above the shop of his bookseller, Henry Brome. His pamphlet war with Richard Baxter and Edward Bagshaw caused him to become “the most obsessive persecutor of actual or imagined nonconformity and, in effect, the antagonistic architect of nonconformist identity,” according to Lynch (7). L’Estrange used his power as surveyor, and later licenser, to interfere with the publication of works by John Milton, among others. Nicholas von Maltzahn argues that the censor successfully re-cast John Milton as a republican with Jesuitical principles, a regicide, a monster of faction, and a “blind guide” (51). His characterization was surprisingly influential: “Owing to Milton’s evil reputation, Whigs did not much invoke Milton before the Revolution of 1688–89, even when they did draw directly on his works” (45). L’Estrange had little respect for oppositional writers working after 1660, considering them far less gifted than their Civil War counterparts. He felt that stationers, not authors, were “the real agents of sedition” (53). Andrew Marvell was an exception, one of the “great Masters of the Popular Stile,” who played a cat-and-mouse game with the licenser (54). Martin Dzelzainis describes Marvell’s clandestine efforts in his “L’Estrange, Marvell and the Directions to a Painter: The Evidence of Bodleian Library, MS Gough London 14.” Mark Goldie, meanwhile, looks at “Toryism at its most unbuttoned and vulgar” in his delightful essay, “Roger L’Estrange’s Observator and the Exorcism of the Plot” (68). He argues that the Observator was “an outwork of popular Royalism, a voice of the backbench, as much as a mouthpiece of the court” (69). L’Estrange used it to harry Titus Oates and his “train of buggering lackeys,” Whigs, Dissenters, and Trimmers (77). In it, he left...

One “Nation,” Under Stephen? The Effects of The Colbert Report on American Youth

This study examines the effect of The Colbert Report, Comedy Central's mock conservative talk show, on young adults. By fashioning his character as a hyperbolic ideologue, Colbert is mocking personalities such as Bill O'Reilly. However, this study finds that when young adults are exposed to The Colbert Report's humor, they are not led to be more critical of the far right. Instead, the opposite happens, and there is an increased affinity for President Bush, Republicans in Congress, and Republican policies. Ironically, Colbert's attempts to poke fun at conservative commentators may be helping those same commentators spread their message.

Tuning in for Solidarity

In recent years, as American liberals, progressives, and radicals of various stripes have struggled to counter the conservative political hegemony of the past several decades, more often than not they have focused much of their attention on the right's influence over the mass media. While shrill accusations of the alleged liberal bias of the media may remain the stock in trade of conservative pundits, from the perspective of their opponents it seems that the advocates of unregulated free enterprise and traditional family values have exploited the media to shift public discourse decisively in their favor. Representations of alternative lifestyles may be found on television, in film, on radio, and in print, usually to the extent that they can be deployed to encourage consumer spending, but content that promotes the cause of organized labor or that is critical of the political economy of contemporary consumer capitalism is largely absent from the mass media. The rise of the right has been perhaps most pronounced in radio. National Public Radio and, more recently, Air America have barely made a dent in the ascendancy of conservative talk radio over the past thirty years. In this battle over who gets to speak as the authentic voice of populist America, the tribunes of the right like Rush Limbaugh and his Dittoheads have, for the most part, held the upper hand. The power of conservative radio listeners was demonstrated in the Republican Party's victory in the 1994 Congressional elections, and their influence has been a factor in nearly every contest since. Moreover, the performance of populist authenticity on conservative radio has furnished vital support for politicians whose economic policies have not benefited most Americans. To the extent that blue-collar sensibilities have inflected

Information, Misinformation, and Political Talk Radio

This article provides an empirical test of the theory that individuals gather political knowledge by inferential reasoning -constructing political ”reality” from the messages to which they are exposed by making inferences about what they do not know based on extrapolations from what they see or hear. This ”filling-in” may often result in misinformation, or the belief in incorrect information (as distinguished from a simple lack of information, or ignorance). Widespread misinformation among the electorate changes our conception of democracy as a ”marketplace of ideas,” and may have much more serious consequences than does a broad lack of information or sophistication on the part of the electorate. Data from a 1997 random-digit-dial survey of 810 adults residing in San Diego was used to test the hypothesis that listening to political talk radio leads to higher levels of both information (regarding non-ideologically charged facts) and misinformation (regarding ideologically charged facts). Analysis revealed that active listening (not only listening but also calling and/or taking action because of talk radio) corresponded to higher levels of in- formation, regardless of the ideological nature of the talk radio programs to which the listeners were exposed. However, greater frequency of exposure to conservative talk radio independently corresponded to greater misinformation, while greater exposure to moderate programming was associated with being less misinformed, controlling for partisanship, ide ology, and a number of other predictors.

Rushed Decisions: Political Talk Radio and Vote Choice, 1994-1996

This paper examines the relationship between listening to conservative talk radio, as personified in the Rush Limbaugh Show, and voting for Republican candidates in the 1994-1996 congressional and presidential elections. I use a series of logistic regressions to test the relationship between listening and vote choice in House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections in 1994, relying on cross-sectional ANES data. I then capitalize on 1994-96 ANES panel data to explore the degree to which changes in vote choice between 1994 and 1996 can be accounted for by listening to Limbaugh. Results suggest that listening to Limbaugh may have substantially increased voter preference for Republican candidates. Exploration of this relationship serves to enhance understanding of the means by which political persuasion occurs, and the conditions under which mass media influence electoral behavior.

From Coughlin to contemporary talk radio: Fallacies & propaganda in American populist radio

Talk radio has evolved into the town meeting of the 1990s. Talk radio's success comes from a combination of powerful personalities, audience involvement, and propagandistic appeals. Talk radio has become so powerful as to prompt the president of the United States to denounce many of its practitioners. Radio listeners need to understand how public figures use the media to manipulate the airwaves and their messages to influence the masses. This paper critically examines conservative talk radio figures using Father Charles Coughlin, the famous “radio priest” of the Shrine of the Little Flower, as the locus of comparison. The authors analyze the radio discourse of Coughlin, contemporary national figures such as Rush Limbaugh, and a Detroit‐area commentator, Mark Scott. Traditional propaganda analysis facilitates understanding of the rhetorical force of talk radio and enables the public to increase their awareness of and ability to deal with propaganda.

Rush to Action: Political Talk Radio and Health Care (un)Reform

The role of talk radio as a determinant of public opinion has garnered considerable journalistic attention but has received little scientific scrutiny. Relying on data from the 1993-1995 American National Election Studies, this article tests the hypothesis that exposure to conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh produced antipathy toward national health insurance. I perform a content analysis of Limbaugh to determine the extent to which Limbaugh attempted to move policy preferences on this issue. I then employ a series of multivariate analyses of attitudes in 1993 and 1995 to determine the nature and magnitude of the ''Limbaugh effect." I conclude that listening to Limbaugh does predict conservative health attitudes in a nontrivial way, independent of ideology, party identification, or listener warmth toward Limbaugh. However, the degree of warmth listeners feel toward Limbaugh does not interact with listening to produce stronger conservatism.