Television, urbanisation and development: a study of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam

The pace of urbanisation in Vietnam is increasing rapidly in tandem with industrialisation and modernisation. The government forecasts that 45 % of Vietnam will be urbanised by 2020. An 'historical' plan for the expansion of Hanoi received a huge endorsement by the National Assembly in May of 2008 despite public protest. Beginning in August 2008 the capital's borders were expanded to create a metropolis 3.6 times its previous size of 922 square kilometres. Hanoi's population will double to 6.2 million as a result creating over 3 million new residents. This thesis project examines how Vietnamese television addresses and serves the communication needs of new residents - recent migrants from the countryside to Hanoi and those who become new residents through urban expansion. -- Theories of media effects, particularly uses and gratifications theory, agenda setting theory, the knowledge gap hypothesis and the media system dependency theory, are adopted to support the study. Focus group discussions with new resident groups and in-depth interviews with television policy makers and programmers are used for data collection with the purpose of determining uses and gratifications on the one hand and approaches, strategies and programs related to those who are new to urban life on the other. -- Results from case studies indicated that the individuals with lower socioeconomic status (SES) have a greater dependence on television for everyday information than those with higher SES. In terms of intercultural communication, these individuals tended to communicate merely within their own cultural groups. The TV policy makers and programmers shared their understandings of the current urban issues and pressures of urbanisation but said they had not recognised the new residents as a specific category of audiences. Within these state-owned stations, the policy making process was first directed by the government and then driven by economic factors. -- The results of the study will inform policy making and programming within Vietnam Television, Vietnam Television Corporation and Hanoi Radio and Television. The viewers' feedback significantly benefits the station managers, producers and practitioners in enhancing and improving the quality of programs to serve their audiences' requirement. -- The study draws contemporary Vietnam into the scholarly discourse on the relationship between communication and development; in this respect, urbanisation in the country has never been studied from the approaches of international communication and media studies.