Understanding Conservative Media Ecosystems: Civic Functions of Rural Talk Radio in the US

• In Event: Media Ecosystems and the Diffusion of Contested Ideas

Abstract

Talk radio is often seen as a fading medium, yet it remains a central, understudied component of contemporary right-wing media ecosystems in the United States. This paper examines three rural, locally owned talk radio stations in Utah to understand how they function as media infrastructure, news providers, and civic actors in overwhelmingly conservative communities. It draws from approximately twelve weeks of ethnographic fieldwork across the 2022 and 2024 election cycles—including newsroom observation and twenty-four semi-structured interviews with owners, managers, and on-air talent.


All three stations serve sparsely populated broadcast areas and fly under the radar of large consolidating conglomerates, even as they rebroadcast syndicated conservative talk shows and news content. At the same time, they play expansive local roles: hosting the only candidate debates in their counties and increasingly operating online “newspapers” that have become primary sources of local news in places often labeled “news deserts.” Station actors position themselves both against and within journalism—criticizing “liberal media bias” while selectively adopting journalistic norms, especially around elections and misinformation.


Situated in Utah’s “Mormon corridor,” where Latter-day Saint culture and institutions shape media production and reception, these stations also function as trusted intermediaries between national conservative media and local audiences via their relationships with Republican politicians, Fox News personalities, and right-wing syndicators. By foregrounding rural talk radio as both local information infrastructure and a node in a broader propaganda feedback loop, the paper complicates prevailing news-desert frameworks and raises questions for philanthropic and policy interventions that overlook existing, highly trusted but ideologically skewed media institutions. The analysis advances media sociology by showing how legacy broadcast infrastructures sustain conservative counterpublics and reshape local journalistic authority and power.

Author

• Rebekah Larsen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology