Doctoral Dissertation Research: Mediating Local, National, & Regional Politics through Community Television

布朗大学博士生，詹妮弗阿什利，在马修博士的指导下。Gutmann和Kay B博士。沃伦将分析地方，国家和地区媒体在低收入城市居民参与民主并开始相信特定政治项目的过程中的作用。这项研究将在智利进行。研究人员报告说，在1980年代，智利的政治参与程度很高，独立媒体的数量也很多。令人惊讶的是，随着20世纪90年代民主的回归，这两个数字都显着下降，这是一个构成本调查基础的谜题。研究人员将关注智利圣地亚哥低收入地区拉维多利亚的一家社区电视台，该电视台因向附近社区的居民播放替代节目而受到全国关注。 通过对拉维多利亚的民族志研究，研究者将分析拉维多利亚日常社会和政治生活背景下的媒体生产，流通和接受。研究方法将包括在电视制作和社区设置，半结构化访谈，小组讨论和视频档案调查的参与者观察。指导研究的关键问题是：（1）地方媒体在促进维多利亚社区政治活动更新方面的作用是什么？(2)社区电视的存在如何影响低收入居民对国家电视台关于地方、国家和地区政治问题的报道的反应？ (3)社区电视如何促进低收入居民参与“拉丁美洲”公共领域的辩论？ 这一项目的重要性在于它侧重于地方和区域一级媒体使用与民主之间的关系。 这项研究将有助于通过分析整个节目流程的制作和接收，而不是一个离散的节目或电视类型，进一步理论理解媒体如何影响民主政治参与。 这项研究也将有助于社会科学家的教育。

Brown University doctoral student, Jennifer Ashley, under the guidance of Dr. Matthew C. Gutmann and Dr. Kay B. Warren, will analyze the role of local, national, and regional media in the process by which low-income urban residents engage with democracy and come to believe in particular political projects. The research will be carried out in Chile. Researchers reported a high level of political participation and a significant number of independent media outlets in Chile during the 1980s. Surprisingly, both decreased significantly with the return to democracy in the 1990s, a puzzle that forms the basis for this investigation.The researcher will focus on a community television station in La Victoria, a low-income area in Santiago, Chile, which has received national attention for transmitting alternative programming to residents in nearby neighborhoods. Through an ethnographic study of La Victoria, the researcher will analyze media production, circulation, and reception within the context of daily social and political life of La Victoria. Research methodologies will include participant observation in television production and community settings, semi-structured interviews, small group discussions, and video archival investigations. Key questions guiding the research will be: (1) What is the role of local media in contributing to a renewal of neighborhood political activity in La Victoria? (2) How does the presence of community television influence how low-income residents respond to national television coverage of local, national, and regional political issues? (3) How might community television facilitate the access of low-income residents to debates within a "Latin American" public sphere? The significance of this project lies in its focus on the relation between media use and democracy at the local and regional levels. The research will contribute to furthering theoretical understanding of how media affects democratic political engagement by analyzing the production and reception of an entire programming flow, rather than one discrete program or genre of television. The research also will contribute to the education of a social scientist.