Radio’s Resistance to Social Media: Can you Relate?

Lisa Braziel | August 01, 2007 | View Comments

In yesterday’s post about Pandora I scratched the surface of a larger issue: the resistance of social media applications within traditional media.

Radio is a prime example. While music sharing is spreading in the social media realm and Web 2.0 applications, public radio is still holding tight to its traditional media tactics, fighting to gain listeners through the same mass media approaches they’ve been using for years.

I can’t help but think that radio is missing the mark. Stations that refuse to adopt these tools are still trying to broadcast to an “audience” rather than communicate with a listener.

What’s with the slow adoption? The Center for Social Media at American University conducted research to determine the barriers that existed in public radio’s adoption of social media tools, and found the following as the top obstacles station’s faced.

• Lack of Resources. “We do not have enough staff to maintain a blog or other social media activities”
• Lack of Knowledge. “Because we are ignorant of these technologies and can’t understand their need.”
• Cannot get buy-in from senior staff. “Senior management don’t get it, and we’ve been unable to convince them that this is ‘now and needs resources to set up and maintain”
• Quality control concerns. “Allowing the community a place on our site requires careful screening and editing. We spent 50 years establishing a credible voice; we can’t allow just anyone to represent our station.”

What is more unfortunate than this is that these are not just the barriers to entry that radio is faced with, but they match those faced by a majority of the companies debating entering the waters of social media.

With that being said, I encourage you to consider this information. Are you appalled that radio doesn’t fully understand the need of social media? Or can you relate to the barriers of entry radio is facing?