Media In The USA

Media in the USA include various types of public communication: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet. These diverse print and broadcast media give international students the opportunity to learn about the country before they leave home, as well as stay informed throughout their time in the US.

Television
Television is one of the major mass media of the United States. An estimated 99% of American homes have a television set, and the majority of households have more than one. There are three basic types of television in the United States: broadcast (freely available to anyone with a TV in the broadcast area), cable television, and satellite television (both of which require subscriptions to receive). International students may be interested to know that the US offers broadcast television in languages other than English (LOTE). For example, Univision, a network of Spanish language stations, is the fifth-largest TV network behind NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox. Its major competition is Telemundo, a sister network of NBC. Two other popular Spanish-language over-the-air networks are the TeleFutura (owned by Univision), which is aimed at a younger Hispanic demographic, and Azteca América, the American version of Mexico's TV Azteca. In addition, the Haitian Television Network, based in Miami, Florida, offers locally produced Haitian Creole and French language programming in Miami and parts of New Jersey, New York City, and Boston.

Radio
The US radio stations across two bands: AM and FM. There are 4,793 AM and 5,662 FM commercial radio stations in the US, and another type of broadcast, which is growing in popularity, is satellite radio. Satellite radio is a digital radio signal that is broadcast by a communications satellite, which covers a much wider geographical range than regular radio signals. Available by subscription, Sirius XM radio is the major satellite radio service offered in the US (and North America). Regardless of how they are broadcast, US radio stations may have different areas of focus: for instance, they may be dedicated to popular music, classical music, news or talk shows and interviews (talk radio) to name a few.

Click here for live streaming of college radio stations in the USA.

Newspapers
There are approximately 1,480 daily papers in the United States. The US does not have one national newspaper; however, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are sold in most American cities. In addition, all major metropolitan areas have their own local newspapers. Major cities often also have "alternative weeklies" to complement the mainstream daily paper(s), as well as local business journals, trade papers relating to local industries, papers for local social groups, and ethnic papers published in Spanish, French, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Polish and Punjabi, among other languages. University and college student newspapers are also common.

Check out post-secondary student newspapers in the US here.

To find newspapers aimed at specific ethnic or religious groups, click here.

Magazines
The United States also has a large magazine industry with hundreds of magazines serving almost every interest imaginable. American magazines specialize in a huge range of fields such as business, entertainment, fashion, film, travel, weddings, outdoor adventure, animals and wildlife, cooking, literature and creative writing, music, home décor, cultural and political analysis, humor, hobbies, arts and crafts, motorsports and more. Many states have their own regional magazines, and some cities also have magazines devoted to life and living in that particular area. The three leading weekly US newsmagazines are TIME, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. Over a dozen major political magazines serve the entirety of the political spectrum, from left to right. Lastly, there are also a number of American magazines published by professional organizations for their members, such as Communications of the ACM (for computer science specialists) and the ABA Journal (for lawyers), as well as ethnic magazines focused on specific cultural groups.

To see a list of ethnic magazines in the US, click here.

Internet
Many newspapers and magazines now have online editions, which sometimes include special web content not found in the print editions. Users usually need to subscribe to the site in order to "unlock" all of the content. There are also many Internet-only news sites and online journals that deliver news almost instantly--sometimes even while it's actually happening.