Understanding Alternative Media

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.

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.

Contesting Media Power is the most ambitious international collection to date on the worldwide growth of alternative media that are challenging the power concentration in large media corporations. Media scholars and political scientists develop a broad comparative framework for analyzing alternative media in Australia, Chile, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Sweden, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Topics include independent media centers, gay online networks and alternative web discussion forums, feminist film, political journalism and social networks, indigenous communication, and church-sponsored media. This important book will help shape debates on the media's role in current global struggles, such as the anti-globalization movement.

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.

Alternative media hold the promise of building public awareness and action against the constraints and limitations of media conglomeration and cutbacks to public broadcasting. But what, exactly, makes alternative media alternative? This path-breaking volume gets to the heart of this question by focusing on the three interconnected dimensions that define alternative media in Canada: structure, participation, and activism. The contributors reveal not only how various kinds of alternative media � including Indigenous, anarchist, ethnic, and feminist media � are enabled and constrained within Canada's complex policy environment but also how, in the context of globalization, the Canadian experience parallels media and policy challenges in other nations.

A text that reveals the value and significance of community media in an era of global communication With contributions from an international team of well-known experts, media activists, and promising young scholars, this comprehensive volume examines community-based media from theoretical, empirical, and practical perspectives. More than 30 original essays provide an incisive and timely analysis of the relationships between media and society, technology and culture, and communication and community. Key Features Provides vivid examples of community and alternative media initiatives from around the world Explores a wide range of media institutions, forms, and practices—community radio, participatory video, street newspapers, Independent Media Centers, and community informatics Offers cutting-edge analysis of community and alternative media with original essays from new, emerging, and established voices in the field Takes a multidimensional approach to community media studies by highlighting the social, economic, cultural, and political significance of alternative, independent, and community-oriented media organizations Enters the ongoing debates regarding the theory and practice of community media in a comprehensive and engaging fashion Intended Audience This core text is designed for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as Community Media, Alternative Media, Media & Social Change, Communication & Culture, and Participatory Communication in the departments of communication, media studies, sociology, and cultural studies.

Offering one of the most comprehensive assessments of alternative media to date, Beyond Mainstream Media examines the rise of alternative media over the last decade, analysing their changing content and editorial strategies, and exploring why many people go beyond the mainstream media for news and information. Considering the differences in agenda between alternative and mainstream media coverage, Cushion sheds light on why right-wing alternative media have become a more prominent part of national media systems than left-wing sites in the Western World. In doing so, he argues that alternative left-wing media should place less emphasis on attacking professional journalism and focus more on converging into the world of mainstream news to promote their politics. This book draws on over 3,500 articles and 17,000 social media posts produced by alternative media, extensive interviews with editors and contributors, and a survey of over 2,700 media users. It develops a comparative international perspective by explaining how findings and concepts can be applied to understanding much broader issues, such as public distrust in the mainstream media or the influence different media and political systems have on the production of alternative media. Providing both an introduction to and a critical analysis of the state of alternative media today, this book is written in clear, jargon-free language and is recommended reading for advanced students undertaking courses in Alternative Media and Political Journalism.

Alternative and Activist New Media provides 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. Today, a lively and contentious cycle of capture, cooptation, and subversion of information, content, and system design marks the relationship between the mainstream ‘center’ and the interactive, participatory ‘edges’ of media culture. Five principal forms of alternative and activist new media projects are introduced, including the characteristics that make them different from more conventional media forms and content. The book traces the historical roots of these projects in alternative media, social movements, and activist art, including analyses of key case studies and links to relevant electronic resources. Alternative and Activist New Media will be a useful addition to any course on new media and society, and essential for readers interested in new media activism.