International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

The community structure model explores links among community characteristics, media content, and effects of exposure to media content from a system perspective. Focusing on macro-constructs associated with media content and media effects, the community structure approach rejects the perspective that all studies of media and audiences can be reduced to the individual level of psychological phenomena. “Structure” refers to community – typically city-level – demographics or other aggregate measures of community identity, membership, participation, production, consumption, or access, ranging from income or education to health-care access (e.g., number of physicians per 100,000 population or percent municipal spending on health-care; →  Exposure to Communication Content ; Media Effects ; Community Integration ; Community Media ). Community integration structure modeling mirrors the injunction of the University of Chicago's Robert Park in the early twentieth century to study not only the impact of media on society (the prevailing model in media studies), but also the impact of society on media. Beginning with the famous studies of Philip Tichenor, George Donohue, and Clarice Olien (1973, 1980) and their several generations of graduate students, the community structure model has been transformed over several decades. Initial studies focused on cities or counties in Minnesota, ... log in or subscribe to read full text