Redes de comunicação, dinâmica territorial e desenvolvimento regional no Vale do Rio Pardo (RS).

Abstract

The present dissertation proposes to bring the communication networks to the center of the debate on the theme of communication and development. Due to the intense presence of support and service networks in contemporary social dynamics, the communication network impacts, and at the same time is shaped, from territorial aspects. To this end, we found in Milton Santos' critical geography the adequate theoretical-analytical approach to carry out this study. The space, the technical-scientific-informational environment, and the territory used, are categories proposed by Santos that are inserted in the current context, whose structure and use are elements that can bring order or disorder in the dynamics of the territory. Our objective is to analyze how the territorial and social configuration and access to communication networks occur and their use for regional development in the Rio Pardo Valley, Rio Grande do Sul. In the theoretical and methodological field, the concept of territory, from a used territory perspective, dialogues with studies about networks, communication, and development, and is supported by concepts of the geographies of communication. The research is characterized by its qualitative approach and to carry it out, we established two theoretical-analytical paths: the first refers to the analysis of how the configuration and socio-spatial distribution of communication networks are presented in the Rio Pardo Valley (internet, mobile telephony, radio, newspaper and television); and the second focuses on the verification of how the media has been used by regional institutions that act for regional development, which are AMVARP, AMCSERRA, CISVALE and CI/JACUÍ, as well as, understand how these institutions perceive the role of media in regional development processes. Regarding the methodological rocedures, to develop the first stage, data collection is based on bibliographic research, in addition to research in TELECO, ANATEL, ADJORI/RS and ADI/RS systems. For the second stage, we carried out documentary research and semistructured interviews with 12 regional actors, among leaders and technicians from the researched institutions, whose analysis was divided in the following topics CONFIGURATION, ACCESS, and USES in favor of REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT. From these analyses it is verified that the configuration and distribution of these technical support networks, internet, and mobile telephony, present a selective and unequal diffusion in their communicational structures; and the service network, formed by the media, is marked by places that command and others that obey, from the information flows. In the interviews, it became evident the use of the media in the relationship with the processes of regional development through an institutional and mediatized bias, in detriment to its use as a vector of development. In this sense, we realized that both the media and the institutions of the Vale do Rio Pardo have an important challenge ahead of them, in order to effectively foment a use of communication that is favorable to regional development.