A Florida State University professor, a college radio host and two consumer advocates Thursday warned that the media ''town square'' will be closed to unpopular ideas if federal regulators relax rules on corporate ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations.

''We're here today to sound the alarm about the Federal Communications Commission's misguided proposal to allow more harmful mergers,'' said Brad Ashwell, a legislative advocate for the Florida Public Interest Research Group, a state chapter of a national consumer advocacy organization.

Ashwell and Andy Opel, an assistant professor of communications, joined broadcaster Rich Templin and Ben Wilcox, head of Common Cause of Florida, to urge Floridians to contact the FCC about pending rules they said would make it easier for corporations to buy multiple media outlets within a market.

''Like it or not, the media are now our local town square,'' Wilcox said. ''Allowing conglomerates gives the media the power to choose to report or not report on issues that are of critical importance to our communities.''

They presented a study of theoretical mergers of dominant newspapers and major TV stations in Miami, Tallahassee and Panama City - saying that in each area, the market share of merged companies would rise but that public access to local news would diminish.

Although newspapers are not regulated by the FCC, Templin and Opel mentioned the acquisition of the FSView/Florida Flambeau by Gannett Co. Inc., which owns the Tallahassee Democrat, as an example.

Templin, who hosts the WVFS show ''Your Voice'' and is communications director for the Florida AFL-CIO, helped found the Tallahassee Red Hills Independent Media Center four years ago to promote diverse print, radio and TV choices.

''These projects and many others show that people want to democratize their media world - they want more, not less,'' Templin said.

Tallahassee Democrat President and Publisher Patrick Dorsey said the FSView deal originated locally, not as a corporate initiative. He said the addition of FSView will ''provide training opportunities to strengthen the ability of the paper and the student journalists to fulfill their mission and serve the FSU community.''

Since Gannett acquired the Democrat, he said, ''we have drastically increased the amount of local content in the newspaper and online at Tallahassee.com. We have also launched several community newspapers where none had existed in the past.''

Brad Ashwell is a legislative advocate for the Florida Public Interest Research Group, a state chapter of a national consumer advocacy organization