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

Richard B. Pace博士（中田纳西州立大学）和Conrad P. Kottak博士（密歇根大学）将研究与电子和数字媒体（电视、广播、电影、CD/DVD、互联网、手机和数字录音机）的引入和传播相关的社会和文化变化。这项研究将在巴西进行，研究人员Kottak在20世纪80年代进行了一项研究，研究新引入的电视对文化和地理上不同的社区的不同影响。这个新项目将返回到这些社区以及其他社区，以评估随后的变化，包括进行原始研究时不存在的新媒体的影响。待研究的五个社区范围从很少接触媒体的亚马逊土著社区到可以接触所有现代媒体的相对富裕的城镇。Kottak先前的研究以及20世纪其他人类学家的研究提供的基线将使跨文化、纵向和比较实证调查成为可能。除了佩斯和科塔克，研究小组还包括四名研究生、一名数据分析师和巴西帕拉斯<e:1>博物馆人类学系的小格伦·h·谢泼德博士（Emí lio Geldi, bel<s:1>, Paraense）。研究重点有三个方面：媒介生产；观众参与;以及听众对信息的接收。有一个丰富的现存文献生产的媒体在巴西，这个项目将综合，但不复制。相反，研究重点将放在(1)媒体是如何被“消费”的（什么是可用的，技术，设置，受众目标，谁参与，它是如何被接受的）；(2)观众如何解读和受到媒体的影响（注意、缺失、忽视、抵制）。他们还将对电视节目进行内容分析。这项研究的结果将为不同背景下与媒体使用和影响相关的社会文化、经济和政治变化提供重要和独特的数据。该项目还支持国际合作和研究生培训。它是由美国国家科学基金会文化人类学项目、国际科学与工程办公室和刺激竞争研究实验项目（EPSCoR）共同支持的。

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).