Radio, Listeners' Age and Use of

Research on radio uses deals with what listeners seek from radio stations and what these listeners receive in return. Age is one important factor in how people use radio, with children using radio more frequently as they get older, especially for listening to music. The study of radio use (as contrasted with radio effects) assumes the ultimate power of the listener and falls under the umbrella of the conditional effects of the media. In particular, uses and gratifications theory looks at what people do with media, rather than what the media do to people.

Uses and gratifications theory was first developed in the early 1940s by such researchers as Herta Herzog and Paul Lazarsfeld (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/6/0,5716,48556+1+47446,00.html?query=lazarsfeld%20paul) as they studied radio listeners. It was an early response to research on the direct effects of media, which assumed that all media had powerful and uniform effects.

A 1951 study showed that children had different uses for adventure stories based on their integration into groups of peers. Those in peer groups used the stories as a source of games, while those outside of peer groups used the stories for fantasies. The researcher concluded that different people can use the same communication message for very different purposes. Contemporary theorists such as Alan Rubin have isolated two categories of motives for media use: instrumental (learning, social) versus ritual (escape, habit, relaxation).

About the same time, another study looked at the listening habits of the young radio audience at a time when serialized dramas for children were still available on network radio. In the 1950s, however, very young audiences were beginning to discover television (e.g., Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo). While the youngsters may have left radio for TV, their adolescent brothers and sisters were drawn to radio, where they could hear rock and roll music and performers such as Elvis Presley.

[Page 689]Since the advent of television in the 1950s, radio has become of less interest to children, so research has focused more on television, especially on its potential for harming children. Television attracts all categories of young people and provides them with the widest range of satisfactions. Even proprietary media research (e.g., by media research companies such as Arbitron and Nielsen) regularly reports radio listening data only for children ages 12 and older, typically because advertisers assume younger children gravitate to television. Children age 2 years and older are counted as television viewers.

Music is the only other medium that ranks close to television, particularly for adolescents, because it can be both the focus of attention and a background medium, has both social and individual uses, and suits a diversity of moods. Radio competes with recorded music, and its use has declined as technology creates alternative delivery systems. In recent years, adolescents have shown much greater interest in recorded audio media and other digital personal media (e.g., iPODs, other MP3 players) that allow music to be downloaded and stored rather than accessed via live broadcasts.

Academic research on radio is somewhat limited in recent years because of attention to television and the Internet, although concern about music lyrics produced notable work in the 1980s and early 1990s. Peter Christenson found age correlates with the amount of radio listening and whether or not listening is done alone or with others. His work confirms earlier research that found a key difference between television and radio with regard to youth: Young people tend to use music and radio to get away from parents, possibly because parents are more willing to permit the unsupervised use of these media than of television. Parents who ban computers and television from bedrooms do not often forbid radio listening. Christenson founds that benefits of radio listening (e.g., music, information, distraction, background noise) do not differ by age or gender. He also confirmed 1972 reports that about a third of sixth graders listen to radio 2 or more hours per day. By the third grade, 80% of children have a favorite station, up from 50% at the previous grade level. He concluded that preteens are “eavesdropping” on the teen world via radio and recorded music, causing occasional concern to parents. In the 1980s, research explored the public policy implications of music lyrics at a time of heightened interest before the labeling of CDs. One study found that African American children consumed 25% more radio than white peers, twice the 12% difference between the groups' television use.

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