The Ideal V. the Real in Media Localism: Regulatory Implications

Most research on the effects of media localism regulation starts and stops by linking the site of broadcast transmissions with content as evaluated at the level of program genre. But broadcasting is not created by transmission towers, the political and expressive nature of programs cannot be discerned by genre, and the effects of content cannot be understood by looking at content alone. To determine whether regulation is effective, policy analysts must look at what empirical research tells us about the ways in which local content is produced, the nature of that content, and the uses of local broadcasting by communities. A synthesis of this research reveals a significant gap between the conceptual ideal of community life as embedded in regulatory assumptions and the actual nature of communities, their decision-making processes, and the effects of local television broadcasting on community life and politics. Copyright 2007, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

The Ideal V. the Real in Media Localism: Regulatory Implications Academic Article