Eric Klinenberg

In recent years debates over the state of local media have reached an unprecedented level of visibility and contention, with an unprecedented three million Americans writing to complain about media policy last year. Today Congress, the FCC, and civic groups have initiated projects to assess local media. But we lack a broad, humanistic examination of how citizens, media organizations, and public officials understand the meanings of localism and the value of local media, and a deep, observational analysis of how local media organizations operate. This project relies on ethnographic observations of local newsrooms and radio studios in-depth interviews with local media producers, citizens, and officials.