The Evolution of Media Influence in Brazil: A Longitudinal and Multi-Sited Study of Electronic and Digital Media

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Dr. Richard B. Pace (Middle Tennessee State University) and Dr. Conrad P. Kottak (University of Michigan) will undertake research on social and cultural changes associated with the introduction and spread of electronic and digital media (television, radio, cinema, CD/DVD, the Internet, cell phone, and digital recorders). The research will be conducted in Brazil where researcher Kottak conducted a study in the 1980s on the differential effects of newly-introduced television on culturally and geographically distinct communities. This new project will return to those communities as well as one other to assess subsequent changes, including the influence of new media not present when the original study was undertaken. The five communites to be studied range from an indigenous Amazonian community with very little media exposure to a relatively wealthy town with access to all contemporary media. The baseline provided by Kottak's previous research as well as the 20th century research of other anthropologists will make possible a cross-cultural, longitudinal, and comparative empirical investigation. In addition to Pace and Kottak, the research team includes four graduate students, a data analyst, and Dr. Glenn H. Shepard, Jr., of the Department of Anthropology at the Museu Paraense Emí lio Geldi, Belém, Pará, Brazil.The research focus is three-fold: media production; audience engagement; and message reception by the audience. There is a rich extant literature on production of media in Brazil that this project will synthesize but not replicate. Instead the research focus will be on (1) how media are "consumed" (what is available, technology, setting, audience goals, who participates, how it is taken up); and (2) how viewers interpret and are influenced by media (heeding, missing, ignoring, resisting). They will also do content analysis of television programming. Findings from this research will provide important and unique data on sociocultural, economic, and political changes associated with media use and influence in different contexts. The project also supports international collaboration and graduate student training. It is being jointly supported by the NSF Cultural Anthropology Program, the Office of International Science and Engineering, and the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).