Reifying the Active Audience? Radio, Reception and Resistance

• In Event: 365 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Cultural Consumption

Abstract

This paper utilizes survey data from an independent, listener-sponsored community radio station to investigate the relationship between an "alternative" media audience and cultural producers. Often presented as an "under-researched" audience, consumers of alternative media are typically argued to be both more engaged and critical than mainstream audiences, as well as potentially more resistant to ideology or commercialism. Although data presented in this analysis do provide some evidence for this perspective, the paper also argues that consumption of, or reception to, alternative and non-commercial media assists this station's listeners in preserving a "resistant identity" as they age--an identity which may prove of interest to scholars of youth subcultures, studies of distinction and taste, and the sociology of culture more generally.

Author

• Amy C. Foerster, Pace University