Photo by Ben McLeod/Flickr (Creative Commons)
A new UC Los Angeles study examines anti-immigrant rhetoric on talk radio, measuring its use on segments of popular conservative talk shows. Put together by the university’s Chicano Studies Research Center and titled “Quantifying Hate Speech on Commercial Talk Radio,” the report released today comes as several Latino groups in Los Angeles are pushing to get one one locally-produced talk show off the air.
The content of three talk shows was analyzed for the pilot study, including Lou Dobbs’ radio program, Michael Savage’s The Savage Nation, and the John and Ken Show, a Clear Channel show on KFI-640 AM that has drawn criticism since its hosts gave out the number of a Los Angeles immigrant advocacy group’s spokesman on air, subjecting him to a barrage of hate calls.
Transcripts of three individual shows, one from each program, were analyzed for their content. Especially interesting is an analysis of terms used in the samples, including what are termed “code words.” From the report:
Readers found that the speakers used indexicality in four ways in the sample segment: 1) the use of codes words to establish Latinos, immigrants, and immigrant rights advocates as “other” to the nation; 2) the use of rhythm, stress, and intonation (prosody) to emphasize nativist attitudes; 3) the reinforcement of nativist attitudes through word repetition; and 4) alignment between the hosts and guest.
Readers identified twenty passages in which indexical terms (code words) were used to identify certain groups as “other” to the nation. Terms such as illegal alien, gangbanger, killers, anarchists, calamity, and domestic terrorism indexed Latinos, undocumented immigrants, and immigrant rights advocates, thereby associating these groups with crime, terror, and a foreign enemy.
