NATIONAL MYTHS, STATE POLICY, AND COMMUNITY-DIRECTED MEDIA: REPRESENTATIONAL POLITICS AND THE RECONFIGURATION OF WELFARE

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Abstract
In the present context of government devolution, welfare policy-making has become a complex interaction between the federal, state, and local scales. In Appalachia, and similar urban and rural distressed areas, welfare reform not only affects recipients but also has a dramatic impact on community life. This paper explores how public assistance policies, shaped by myths about welfare, work, and poverty, are presently contested through community-directed media. Representational strategies that use video, radio, and other media to express the local realities of welfare across wider geographic fields provide insight into how communities cope with changing policy and help us examine economic and social links across scales. Understanding and fostering these linkages is crucial to the creation of public policy that is sensitive to local conditions and that moves beyond stereotypes of welfare and poverty as phenomena confined to central cities. [Key words: welfare reform, Appalachia, media.]