African American Community Radio
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motor reproduction, and motivational. Although social learning theory since then
has been used to explain audience predisposition to violent behavior as “learned”
from the media, (see Hogben, M. and Krohn, M.D.), few if any studies have broadly
examined how well this theory can explain positive behaviors too.
For African Americans, Black radio formats provide rich media contexts that
can illuminate how “community” is framed and enacted. A close examination of
transcribed listener calls from KKDA’s the “Willis Johnson Morning Show”
illustrates how these stages are emulated. Research has shown the importance of
hearing one’s own beliefs reinforced by others via the mass media: “[Black-oriented]
radio heightened the racial awareness of Blacks....Its very name intensified racial
identification. So did the dialogue that developed between the people behind the
microphone and those tuning in to the shows” (Newman, 1988, p. 138).
Hearing Johnson’s program is often hke hstening in on a “party line.” While
these conversations are on one level immensely entertaining, often moving and
frequently outrageous, taken as a whole, the body of these exchanges comprises a
more powerful dynamic. With an agenda whose “purpose is to serve the Black
community, 100% the Black community” (Dowe, personal communication, Aug.
24, 2000), KKDA-AM sustains its links to its listeners by providing a forum to
express and reinforce shared values. Social learning theory, amplified by transcribed
segments of conversations between host Willis Johnson and various listeners,
models a process where the value of community service is taught and supported.
In truth, this tradition is an integral part of the historic evolution of Black radio in
the United States.
History of African-American Radio in U.S.
The first radio station with an all-Black format (although its owners were
white) was probably WDIA in Memphis in 1948; the first Black-owned station
was WERD in Atlanta, put on the air by Jesse Blayton Sr. in early October of 1949.
The legendary WDIA was known for its “Goodwill Announcements,” which were
broadcast free-of-charge. As a WDIA promotional item put it: “It isn’t easy for
Negroes to communicate with one another” (Cantor, 1992, p. 197).
Over the years, commercial radio for African-Americans has been subject to
opprobrium from critics who have opined that it has inadequately served its
audience. As one observer com m ented, “Far from being a m edium for
communicating a specifically Negro viewpoint.. .radio has become, because of its
commercial nature, a medium by which the white establishment, through
advertising, is actually seeking to sell its values to the Negro” (Kahlenberg, 1966).
Another commentator, writing during the era when desegregation was still the
civil rights movement’s chief objective, questioned the very existence of radio
targeted at African-Americans: “[Black radio] all too often resorts to an aural