Alternative Media

What are alternative media? What roles do alternative media play in pluralistic, democratic societies? What are the similarities and differences between alternative media, community media, civil society media and rhizomatic media? How do alternative media work in practice? This clear and concise text offers a one-stop guide through the complex political, social and economic debates that surround alternative media and provides a fresh and insightful look at the renewed importance of this form of communication. Combing diverse case studies from countries including the UK, North America and Brazil, the authors propose an original theoretical framework to help understand the subject. Looking at both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, the book argues for the importance of an alternative media and suggests a political agenda as a way of broadening its scope. Understanding Alternative Media is valuable reading for students in media, journalism and communications studies, researchers, academics, and journalists.

Drawing examples from the UK and the US, this volume offers an introduction to alternative media. It includes radical media as well as newer cultural forms such as zines, fanzines, and personal Web sites.

This book offers an overview of global alternative media activity, before moving on to provide information about alternative media production and how to get involved in it.

Resisting the News brings together unique insights from activists and alternative-media users to offer a distinctive perspective on the problems of journalism today—and how to fix them. Using critical-cultural theory and, in particular, the conceptual frameworks of ritual communication and interpretive communities, this book examines how audiences filter their interpretations of mainstream news through the prisms of their identities and experiences with alternative media and political protest. Jennifer Rauch gives voice to alternative-media audiences and illuminates the cultural resources, values, assumptions, critical skills, and discursive strategies through which they make sense of their news environments. Drawing on a 15-year research project, Rauch employs a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and quasi-ethnographic methods, including focus groups, media-use diaries, close-ended surveys, and open-ended questions, to paint a layered portrait of liberal and conservative critiques of journalism. Shedding new light on popular theories about "how news works" and about "mass" audiences, this book will be useful to students, scholars, and teachers of political communication, journalism studies, media studies, and critical-cultural studies.

"A provocative, inspiring and challenging intervention in both journalism and media studies.... Alternative Journalism is that rare book that services students as much as scholars. It widens the trajectory of media studies and creates different modes of reading, writing and thinking... It offers an alternative history beyond the tales of great men, great newspapers, great editors and great technologies. It adds value and content to overused and ambiguous words such as "community" and "citizenship" and captures the spark of new information environments." - THE, (Times Higher Education) Alternative Journalism investigates and analyses the diverse forms and genres of journalism that have arisen as challenges to mainstream news coverage. From the radical content of emancipatory media to the dizzying range of citizen journalist blogs and fanzine subcultures, this book charts the historical and cultural practices of this diverse and globalized phenomenon. This exploration goes to the heart of journalism itself, prompting a critical inquiry into the epistemology of news, the professional norms of objectivity, the elite basis of journalism and the hierarchical commerce of news production. In investigating the challenges to media power presented by alternative journalism, Atton addresses not just the issues of politics and empowerment but also the journalism of popular culture and the everyday. The result is essential reading for students of journalism - both mainstream and alternative.

A rich and accessible overview of the ways in which activists, artists, and citizen groups around the world use new media and information technologies to gain visibility and voice, present alternative or marginal views, share their own DIY information systems and content, and otherwise resist, talk back to, or confront dominant media culture.

This book offers a fresh perspective on central questions related to right-wing alternative media: Can right-wing media be alternative? Why do they exist? Are they a threat to the existing order and what have the reactions been from mainstream politicians and media actors? The rise and success of right-wing populism in the political life of many western countries, along with several new and apparently successful alternative media operations on the right, has caused surprise and confusion among researchers and debaters. How should this challenge to mainstream politics and media be understood? Journalistic, political and academic discourse has struggled to explain these tendencies and tend to focus on sensational and extreme examples, with little attention directed towards other aspects. This book critically discusses existing theoretical frameworks related to alternative media in general, analysing a wide scope of cases to illustrate the diversity of voices in alternative media on the right and highlighting the importance of intellectual coolness and common sense in discussions about this important but ideologically and politically charged area. An important addition to the current discourse of contemporary media, Right-Wing Alternative Media is ideal for researchers, students and anyone interested in politics and public discourse.

Scholars of journalism and media studies have illustrated the production of alternative media as a means for activists to generate dissent, while communication scholars have examined activists' performances and image events as challenges to dominant power structures. The approaches of both fields have contributed to academic understanding of social movements in modern society, but until now, their findings have emerged separate from one another. This book brings together both lines of research, and demonstrates the role of alternative media in the performance of resistance against power structures by contemporary activists. Specifically, the book explores the role of alternative media in the establishment of activist networks in local communities; the role of alternative media in the construction of strategies of resistance by networked activists; and the role of interactivity between local and global networks in production of alternative media content. The book is suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses concerning social movements within the fields of communication, media, and journalism.

This study of alternative and activist media provides an introduction to alternative media theories, audiences and practices. It brings diverse voices and concepts from outside the commercial media world to the fore, enriching and challenging mass media. Illustrated with historical and current examples, from both a UK and international perspective, it also includes carefully constructed exercises and discussion topics based on case studies and available texts.Topics include the place of alternative media in a mass-media world; a history of alternative and activist media; media participation and consumption by marginalised audiences; the use of pirate and community radio, video and television by community and minority groups; fanzines and other small publishing ventures by individuals; the use of alternative media for explorations in design; the blurring of boundaries between alternative and mass media; and new technology and its possibilities for alternative media.

What caused the New Left rebellion of the 1960s? In Smoking Typewriters, historian John McMillian argues that the "underground press" contributed to the New Left's growth and cultural organization in crucial, overlooked ways.