I'm putting out a call to desi college students in the Philly area: come up with a list of companies that advertise on Power 99's Star and Buc Wild show.

Why? Well, let's take a little tour through social science, an oxymoron if I've ever heard one.

First stop: Anthropology

Anthropology directs our attention to the use of discourse in the construction of meaning.
Huh?
In simpler language, Anthropology teaches us to listen closely, not just to what somebody is saying but to how they say it.

Everybody? Get out your Turbanhead.coms, we're going to do a close reading:

Community-affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill, is quoted as saying "Essentially [we're] apologizing for things on our Web site that were racially inflammatory and insensitive, saying, 'We took it off our Web site and it won't happen again.' " She said the more serious matter was posting the clip on the Web site. "That probably made it a much more - just a worse situation. Then people could click on it and hear it. That was not cool... . He made a big ol' mistake in judgment."
[snip]
Secondly, the Inquirer story tries to diminish the scope of the problem by taking Morrill's word that "Most of the e-mails came from people who do not listen to Power 99, whose audience is mainly African American. What does the demographics or geographic location of the offended have to do with this offending clip?

Let's try to answer Turbanhead here. Why is Power99 apologizing for putting the clip on the web rather than for having recorded it in the first place? Why do they keep mentionining that the people complaining are not their listeners?

I think their language reveals their notion of "fairness." In their world, a company's job is to make its audience laugh. In their minds, there would have been nothing wrong if the skit had simply aired as planned, heard mainly by their on air listeners. The mistake was putting the clip on the web, and exposing it to a broader audience who might be offended by it. That is, they're not sorry they did it, they're sorry we're offended. They're trying to be gracious.

You see something similar when they protest that we aren't their regular listeners. They don't think it's fair that we, who are not their core audience, are getting upset. They've done their job, namely entertaining their audience. We shouldn't be butting in. The fact that they butted into our realm by calling India, using lewd language and threats is not really of importance to them. They can call India, but we can't call Philly, home of M.Knight himself.

Next stop: Economics

Why do they see their primary moral responsibillity as to their listeners? Why do they see our complaints as illegitimate?

Simple - they are doing business with their listeners. If they offend their listeners, they lose money. They aren't going to ask Star and Buc to get up and apologize to all anonymous Brown people everywhere, these two are stars, they just got a huge contract in NY. The fact that they apologized at all probably came about b/c Clear Channel announced a "zero-tolerance" policy after paying $1.75 Million in fines to the FCC last year.

Last stop, Politics

So how do we get their attention and force an apology from the shock jocks themselves? Hit 'em where they hurt, their advertisers. Once we just compile a list of advertisers, they'll start to pay attention. They'll pay more attention if that list finds its way into an Indian newspaper. You see, some of the same companies that advertise on Power99 are making big bucks in India selling their wares to middle class workers like Tina/Steena who work at call centers. Indians are very nationalistic. I don't think KFC would like to start to lose Indian consumers, and carefully built brand associations, just as they are starting a big push. If they're a sponsor of the Star and Buc Wild show, I think they'd prefer to switch their ads to another fine Philly radio station, and perhaps take out a few more ads in order to reach the same size market.

They're not worried about a boycott amongst US based desis, this pair has offended larger and more organized US communities than us. But India, that's a different matter. Loss of market share now could be very expensive down the road.

I also think we should continue to send missives to the FCC, but not hold our breath. The FCC can only police lewdness and vulgarity, not content. That is, we can point out to the FCC that he used the phrases "Bitch" and "Rat Eater." He very carefully did not, however, say the word "Fuck" precisely because he didn't want the FCC to slap him with a fine. Instead he asked "what the eff would you know" and offered to "choke the eff out of [her]" It's possible that the FCC may also consider the threat to "choke the eff" out of Tina obscene because violence against women is generally outside the bounds of decency, but I'm not a lawyer. The main reason to write the FCC is that the more noise we make there, the more annoyed Clear Channel HQ will get, and the more likely they are to smack somebody further down the food chain.

To sum up for today's class - follow the Benjamins. If you want to force an apology out of this pair, then your best tactic is to compile a list of advertisers. That's our major point of leverage. Everything else is simply ... academic.