RADIO'S COUP : HOW POLITICS TALK DISPLACED NEWS IN PUERTO RICAN INFORMATION RADIO AND ITS INFLUENCE ON POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

Commercial news media organizations focus more frequently on the entertainment value of politics, restricting thoughtful reporting on public issues. In recent years, information radio in Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States, has increased their opinion programming and downsized newsrooms. As a result, audiences’ access to information is limited or filtered through the opinions of partisan commentators. Using a mixed method approach that included in-depth interviews to radio workers and audience members, as well as a content analysis of information radio programing during election years 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016, this study examined how different constraints shaped content and its impact on political polarization. Following the Hierarchy of Influences Model, radio worker interviews revealed pressures at all levels impacted content causing the displacement of formal news programs and the consolidation of an offer based on political commentary and opinion. At the media organization level, ownership and editorial policy determine what news are broadcast and how issues are framed. In addition, the main radio networks offer only pro-statehood and pro-free-associated state commentary relegating pro-independence voices in politics talk shows. Radio’s economic model depends exclusively on advertising and has yet to transform the Internet into another source of income. Therefore, audience ratings are the main criteria to select the content giving primacy to politics talk shows. The content analysis examined the programming of WKAQ 580, NotiUno 630, and Radio Isla 1320. Although the interviews with radio workers and an analysis of the programing grids of the aforementioned radio stations showed an increase in politics talk shows, news is present across different program formats in the form of bulletins, but not formal news programs. As a strategy to gain commercial success, topics focused on political controversy, economy, and crime. Incidentally, outrage was not as pervasive as it is in United States news/talk radio. Finally, audience interviews revealed the public chooses opinion programs over news. Politics talk shows serve an educational function since they contribute to the understanding of political processes. Participants assign credibility to politics talk show hosts that are reputable and have experience in the political arena as former politicians or political advisors. While some respondents identify slant in political commentary, others attribute journalism tenets such as objectivity to politics talk shows. Accordingly, audiences recognize opinion programs that provide multiple ideological perspectives as unbiased.Consistent with Selective Exposure, publics sponsor opinion programs aligned with their party affiliation. Messages in news and politics talk shows lean towards maintaining a political relationship with the United States. This is evident in the negative tone used to reference the Puerto Rican Government and absent or positive allusions to the U.S. Government. However, polarization occurs along the lines of national identity. Political parties differentiate ideologically as the Popular Democratic and Independence parties embrace the idea of a Puerto Rican nation while the New Progressive Party advocates integration as a state of the Union. In Puerto Rico the right is associated with statehood whereas the left is related to the demand for political powers or secession.