Alternative media

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While mainstream mass media on the whole represent government and corporate interests,[2] alternative media tend to be non-commercial projects that advocate the interests of those excluded from the mainstream, for example, the poor, political and ethnic minorities, labor groups, feminists, and GLBTQ identities.[3] These media broadcast ignored or overlooked viewpoints, such as those heard in the progressive news program Democracy Now!, and create communities of identity, as seen for example in the It Gets Better Project that was created on YouTube in response to a rise in gay teen suicides at the time it was created.

Alternative media have historically been counter-hegemonic, in other words, they challenge the dominant set of beliefs and values of a culture (see Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony). Defining alternative media as simply counter to mainstream is limiting, however, and modern approaches to the study of alternative media also address how and where these media are created, as well as the dynamic relationship between the media and the participants that create and use them.[4][5]

Common approaches and practices[edit]


Democratic theory and the public sphere[edit]



Social movement media[edit]

Social movements are defined as a type of group action. They are large, sometimes informal, groupings of individuals or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues. In other words, they carry out, resist or undo a social change. Social movement media is how social movements use media, and oftentimes, due to the nature of social movements, that media tends to be alternative.

Communication is vital to the success of social movements. Research shows that social movements experience significant difficulties communicating through mainstream media because the mainstream media often systematically distort, negatively cast, or ignore social movement viewpoints.[8] They may deny social movements' access or representation at critical moments in their development, employ message frames that undermine or weaken public perceptions of a movement's legitimacy or implicitly encourage movement actors who seek coverage to cater to the questionable values of mainstream reportage on social activism, including a heightened interest in violence, emotionality, and slogans.[8] This problematic coverage of social movements is often referred to as the protest paradigm: the idea that mass media marginalizes protest groups through their depictions of the protesters, and, by doing so, subsequently support the status quo. As a result, social movements often turn to alternative media forms and practices in order to more effectively achieve their goals.

Example of a sign used during the Occupy Wall Street movement


For more information about social movements, and alternative media, check out Social Movement Theory.


Alternative media has been a significant tool for social movements. Social movements in areas such as human rights, the environmental movement, and civil rights, have used alternative media to meet the goals of the movement and to foster advocacy, change and participation. The following a just a few examples of social movements that have used alternative media practices to achieve their goals, spread awareness, and inspire participation and support.

Human rights[edit]
A favela in Brazil


Environmental movement[edit]
Protester at a Greenpeace march in 2009

An example of an environment movement using alternative media is the group Green Peace. Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization whose goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, lobbying, and research to achieve its goals, as well as alternative media. They use online tactics such as podcasts and blogs[10] as well as performance art.[11]

Civil rights[edit]

An example of a civil rights movement group using alternative media was the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC was one of the most important organizations of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. SNCC was involved in voter registration rights in the south, established Freedom Schools, organized the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), among many other accomplishments. Alternative media tactics used by SNCC included establishing a dedicated Communication Section which included a photography arm, its own printing press (which published its newsletter the Student Voice), published publicity materials, and created an alternative wire press.[12]

Participatory culture[edit]

Participatory culture is defined as a culture in which individual citizens to do not act as consumers only, but also act as contributors or producers. Participatory culture is a space, other than the mainstream media, for civic engagement and creative expression, and it emphasizes that democratic media potentials can be realized by opening up access to media production.[13] Alternative media have frequently been studied analogous to participatory culture because both share a vision of a more democratic media structure and generally because producing alternative media requires participation in media production.

Participatory culture has been around longer than the Internet. The emergence of the Amateur Press Association in the middle of the 19th century is an example of historical participatory culture; at that time, young people were hand typing and printing their own publications. These publications were mailed throughout a network of people and resemble what are now called social networks. The evolution from zines, radio shows, group projects, and gossips to blogs, podcasts, wikis, and social networks has impacted society greatly. With web services such as Wikipedia, Tumblr, Imgur, Reddit, Vine, and YouTube, all of which allow users the opportunity to create and upload original content, it is no wonder that culture and media production has become more participatory.

Participatory journalism is also an example of how citizens generate alternative media. Also referred to as citizen journalism, participatory journalism is defined as when public citizens play an active roles in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. It is also an alternative and activist form of newsgathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, it uses similar journalistic practices but is driven not by profit making goals primarily but by different ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than tradition or mainstream journalism.

For an index of alternative news presses check out The Alternative Press Center

Participatory media approaches consider participation in producing media content as well as in making decisions about media production processes as a central defining feature of alternative media.[13] Participatory culture can be realized in a number of ways. Media literacy is a way to begin participating by understanding media systems' conventions and means of production. Individuals learning to produce media themselves is the step that moves citizens from literacy to participation. Fan fiction, community radio or low-power FM, home videos, are but just a few ways that citizens can produce media content to participate in culture and to produce alternative media.

By fostering participation, alternative media contribute to the strengthening of a civic attitude and allow citizens to be active in one of the main spheres relevant to daily life and to put their right to communication in to practice. To demonstrate the relationship between democracy and participation in media production, the term citizen's media illustrates that alternative media can help those who are producing media also become active citizens – particularly in a democracy.[13] This idea is tied very closely to community media (see next section).

Community media[edit]


Race and indigenous media[edit]

Minority community media can be both localized and national, serving to disseminate information to a targeted demographic. They provide a platform for discussion and exchange within the minority communities as well as between the minority and the majority communities. Oftentimes minority focused media serves an essential resource, providing their audiences with essential information, in their own language of origin, helping the specified group to participate as equal citizens of their country of residence. These media platforms and outlets create opportunity for cultural exchange and the elevation or empowerment of a disenfranchised or marginalized group, based on racial, ethnic or cultural identity. Historically, these forms of media have served dual purpose, to disseminate information to a community that is traditionally ignored or overlooked by major media outlets and as a vehicle for political protest or social reform.

Spaces created to address minority discourse typically straddle the line of both alternative and activist media, working to provide a resource unavailable through mainstream measures and to shift the universally accepted perspective or understanding of a specific group of people. Sociologist Yu Shi's exploration of alternative media provides opposing arguments about the role of minority media to both facilitate cultural place making and hinder community assimilation and acculturation. Shi expounds a widely shared understanding that racially informed media provide place, power, and political agency.

Throughout the 20th century media spaces were developed to accommodate the growing multi-cultural state of the United States. African-Americans created local publications like the Chicago Defender to share critical information to protect citizens from discriminatory practices by police and policy-makers, while Jet and Ebony magazine served to empower the national black identity, lauding the achievements and thought leadership of black Americans. Similar practices became increasingly common for Latino/Latina and Asian groups. As immigration increased post 1965, Spanish-language newspapers and television stations, along with the creation of television networks like ICN-TV specifically for Chinese immigrants. A critical awareness of an increasingly participatory global media culture in multicultural societies is becoming widespread and a necessary approach to explain the success and impact of ethnic or minority media, as well as to embrace the changing ways in which people 'use' their media.

Connections to subaltern studies[edit]


There are various definitions for "alternative media," as suggested above. John Downing, for example, defines "radical alternative media" as media "that express an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, priorities, and perspectives".[14] In his assessment of a variety of definitions for the term, Chris Atton notes repeatedly the importance of alternative media production originating from small-scale, counter-hegemonic groups and individuals.[15]



Forms of media[edit]

Press – print[edit]




One prominent NGO dedicated to tactical media practices and info-activism is the Tactical Technology Collective which assists human rights advocates in using technology. They have released several toolkits freely to the global community, including NGO In A Box South Asia, which assists in the setting up the framework of a self-sustaining NGO, Security-In-A-Box,[20] a collection of software to keep data secure and safe for NGOs operating in potentially hostile political climates, and their new short form toolkit 10 Tactics,[21] which "... provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate a cause".[22]


The logo for one of Pacifica Radio's most popular programs

Radio has been a significant medium for alternative media makers due to its low cost, ease of use, and near ubiquity globally.[11] Alternative radio has arisen in response to capitalist and/or state-sponsored mainstream radio broadcasts. For example, in early 1970s Australia, a new alternative radio sector was created by those who felt excluded from the two-sector national broadcasting system, consisting of a national public service broadcaster and commercial services.[23] In the US, the first listener-supported independent station, KPFA, began in 1949 in order to provide an avenue for free speech unconstrained by the commercial interests that characterized mainstream radio.[1]

Their content ranges broadly; while some stations' primary aims are explicitly political and radical, others namely seek to broadcast music that they believe to be excluded from mainstream radio.[24] Alternative radio often, though not always, takes the form of community radio, which is generally understood as participatory, open, non-profit, and made by and for a community.[25] These radio stations may broadcast legally or illegally, as pirate radio. Alternative radio is a global phenomenon.[25] Examples of community and alternative radio endeavors include Tilos Rádió (Hungary), Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation (Canada), Pacifica Radio and the Prometheus Radio Project (both in the United States), and Radio Sagarmatha (Nepal).

Video and film[edit]

Alternative film and video is generally produced outside of the mainstream film and video industries and features content and/or style that is rarely seen in mainstream product.[26] However, its particular genre, content, and form vary widely. It is often produced in non-profit organizational contexts, such as video art collectives (e.g. Videotage, Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative) or grassroots social justice organizations (e.g. Line Break, CINEP—Center for Research and Popular Education).[27][28][29][30] Participatory video projects in which marginalized or under-resourced groups tell their stories through video demonstrate the possibility for access and participation in video-making to empower those involved, circulate representations unseen in mainstream media, and challenge existing power relations.[5]

Alternative film in the United States is evident in the work of The Film & Photo League chapters of the 1930s, which drew attention to union and class issues through social documentary film and the editing of newsreels.[31] Though initiated in the 60's and 70's, radical video making reached an apex in the 80's as technology became more accessible. Public access television provided a broadcast outlet for oftentimes punk and hip-hop-influenced radical cultural critique.[32] Deep Dish TV, for instance, is a television network which seeks to provide media access to grassroots organizations and to marginalized or misrepresented perspectives through public access television.[33] Today, portable, accessible recording technology and the internet allow increasing opportunities for global participation in the production, consumption, and exchange of alternative video content.[34]





Lastly, Internet also breeds a new way of creation and dissemination of knowledge —commons knowledge— that is different from the top-down manner. It seeks out and encourages the participation of multiple users, fostering forms of collaborative knowledge production and folksonmoies. Wikipedia is an excellent example of this genre.

Street art[edit]


The street art movement gained popularity in the 1980s as a form of art distinct from high art and commercial venues, but as popularity grew, some street artists moved from the alternative venues of the streets to gallery and museum showings.[37] Cities such as Paris, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo rose to prominence in using street art as legitimate alternative media through artist collectives and competitions, bringing attention to alternative voices. The internet has also influenced street art greatly by functioning as a platform for artists and fans to share pictures of street art from around the world. Websites like and are among the most popular of street art sharing sites.[38]





Genres of alternative and activist new media[edit]


  • Culture jamming generally attempts to critique popular culture such as entertainment, advertising, and art.[42] It tends to comment on issues of corporate capitalism and consumerism, and seeks to provide political commentary. Characteristics of culture jamming texts include the appropriation or repurposing of images, video, sound, or text and that they are ironic or satirical in some sense.[43] Today, culture jamming can come in the form of internet memes and guerrilla marketing.
  • Alternative computing deals with the material infrastructure of informational and communications technologies. It seeks to critique and reconfigure systems with the intention of subverting or evading commercial and political restraints on open access to information and information technologies.[44] Some examples of alternative computing are hacking, open source software or systems, and file sharing.
  • Commons knowledge as a genre refers to projects that provide alternatives to the traditional top-down creation and dissemination of knowledge. It seeks out and encourages the participation of multiple users, fostering forms of collaborative knowledge production and folksonmoies.[46] Wikipedia is an excellent example of this genre.

Thinking of current forms of alternative media in terms of genre not only allow us to identify the features and conventions of certain modes of communication, but also how "they allow people to express themselves appropriately, and to achieve their various purposes or intentions."[47] In other words, we can begin to understand how the creators and participants of alternative new media projects actively shape their communication practices.



The role of aesthetics in alternative media can be seen as an inherently political tool used to subvert dominant power, and associated with more experimental and innovative modes of production and collaboration. Like many makers of alternative media, scholar Crispin Sartwell identifies politics as an aesthetic environment.[50] As such, these artpolitical systems not only use aesthetics as a tool to gain power, but are also produced via aesthetic forms within all media. Thus, it is not uncommon for alternative media to seek new artistic, non-traditional, or avant-garde means to represent its content. In this case, the use of aesthetics allows alternative media to address what might seem to be otherwise banal content in a manner which re-aligns, re-negotiates, or exposes the politics at work within it.






Some avant-garde movements which emphasize on the role of the audience and participation within their conception include Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Situationism, Pop art, Neo-concretism, and the Theatre of the Oppressed.[51] By inviting the audience to participate in the creation of media, collaborators look to subvert or critique hierarchical structures of power (capitalism, the ivory tower) within society by embracing democratic modes of production. Strategies that involve the input or collaboration of all stakeholders often result in less formally 'correct' aesthetics.

See also[edit]

Alternative media scholars[edit]


  19. ^ a b Gunderloy, Mike (August 1991), "Glossary", Factsheet Five (Rensselaer, NY: Pretzel Press) (44), p. 86, ISSN 0890-6823, retrieved 2007-11-05 
  20. ^ Security-In-A-Box
  21. ^ 10 Tactics
  24. ^ Ke, Shun-Chih (2000). "The emergence, transformation, and disintegration of alternative radio in Taiwan: From underground to community radio". Journal of Communication Inquiry 24 (4). 
  27. ^ "Videotage". Retrieved 2015-11-24. 
  28. ^ "LAFCO: Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative". Retrieved 2015-11-24. 
  29. ^ "Mission + Vision | Line Break Media". Retrieved 2015-11-24. 
  31. ^ Leshne, C (2006). "The Film & Photo League of San Francisco". Film History 18: 361. 
  36. ^ Irvine, Martin. "The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture." The Handbook of Visual Culture. London: Berg, 2012. 235-278. Print.
  38. ^ "Wooster Collective". Wooster Collective. Retrieved 2015-10-27. 
  39. ^ Hellerman and Goddard 1983
  40. ^ Performance Art Movement, Artists and Major Works." The Art Story.