CITATION AND COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
Cite as: Higgins, J. W. (1999). Sense-Making and empowerment: A study of the “vision” of community television. The Electronic Journal of Communication [On-line serial] 9 (2, 3, & 4).
© The Electronic Journal of Communication (1999).

ABSTRACT:
This article investigates the role of Sense-Making Methodology in a study of community volunteer producers at a public access cable television facility in the U.S. Midwest. The Sense-Making approach is viewed as a system that allows for pragmatic implementation of liberatory goals and facilitates personal emancipation through self-reflection. Utilizing deductive and inductive approaches, the public access study explored institutional claims of empowerment by the access movement and compared these with the experiences of community participants. The results particularly showed that the realization of the empowerment vision, which is the characteristic claim made for media education and involvement, is less direct and more subtle than the literatures investigated suggest. The findings confirm some of the Sense-Making theoretical premises related to the nature of the individual and the collective, the role of information in people’s lives, and communicative practice as process.

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See: http://communication.sbs.ohio-state.edu/sense-making/AAauthors/authorlisthiggins.html.