Community Integration, Local Media Use, and Democratic Processes

Abstract

Research on dimensions of community integration has suffered from the lack of clear conceptual and operational definitions. The purposes of this article are to explicate the concept of community integration and its dimensions and to specify the structural and media antecedents and the political consequences of these dimensions. Using 15 indicators drawn from previous integration studies, we test the hypothesis that integration is a multidimensional concept. A factor analysis reveals that community integration has at least five dimensions: psychological attachment, interpersonal discussion networks, city versus group, localism versus cosmopolitanism, and city versus neighborhood. The structural and media use antecedents and the political consequences of these dimensions are examined to provide construct validity for our measurement. We find strong relationships between local media use and the dimensions of community integration, as well as links between local media use and community integration and local political interest, knowledge, and participation.