Alternative Media

Making Global Publics? Communication and Knowledge Production in the World Social Forum Process

by Hilde C. Stephansen

PhD Thesis, 2011

This thesis provides an in-depth empirical analysis of the character and significance of media and communication in... more This thesis provides an in-depth empirical analysis of the character and significance of media and communication in the World Social Forum (WSF), focusing on their relationship to processes of knowledge production. Using the concept of publics as a theoretical tool, it explores how, through mediated communication, forum organisers and communication activists seek to extend the WSF in time and space and thereby make it public. Engaging critically with the idea of the WSF as a global process, the thesis considers how mediated communication might contribute to making the WSF global, not so much in absolute terms as by creating a sense of globality, and how the idea of the global relates to other scales. It develops an understanding of the WSF as an epistemic project that seeks both to affirm the existence and validity of multiple knowledges and to facilitate convergence between them, and considers how different communication practices might further this project.

Based on ethnographic research carried out in connection with the WSF 2009 in Belém, complemented by fieldwork at other social forums, the thesis is structured as a series of case studies of different communication practices, ranging from efforts to engage with conventional mass media to various initiatives that seek to strengthen movement-based communication infrastructures and enable WSF participants to communicate on their own terms. These demonstrate that there are many different approaches to making the WSF 'public' and 'global', which beyond facilitating the circulation of media content also involve mobilising new actors to participate in media production and generating a sense of identification with a global WSF process. They also show that mediated communication can contribute to knowledge production not only by facilitating information sharing, but also through the more subtle processes of empowerment, network-building, and translation across difference it can stimulate when embedded in movement dynamics.

Oppositional Politics and the Internet: A Critical/Reconstructive Approach

by Richard Kahn

Co-authored with Doug Kellner, Cultural Politics, Vol. 1., No. 1, 2005

Imagined Disaster

by Anton Novenanto

Sometimes, disasters occurred are not only caused by physical damages as consequences of destructive natural... more Sometimes, disasters occurred are not only caused by physical damages as consequences of destructive natural phenomena, but also triggered by the unstable social structures in the society that affect the ordinary social processes. This article looks at the role of mainstream and alternative media responses to mud volcano in Porong, Sidoarjo, East Java which has occurred since May 29, 2006, or “the Lapindo Case”. Following the spirit of “freedom to express”, which is getting stronger since the Reform 1998, has pushed social groups to voice their version of the truth about this case. The truths are articulated through the existing mass media, or by publishing new (alternative) media. Rather to construct, these efforts were just deconstructing public’s images about the Lapindo Case.

The value of alternative media

by Dorothy Kidd

Alternate Media, Critical Consciousness and Action: The Beginnings of a Conversation about Women and Grassroots Media'

by Dorothy Kidd

A voice of our own: the need for an alternative public space.

by Laurence Cox

In UCG EcoSoc (eds.), The future of the Irish environmental movement: aims, aspirations and realities. Galway: UCG EcoSoc, 1997

Argument around the situation of the Irish alternative press in the immediate run-up to the development of... more Argument around the situation of the Irish alternative press in the immediate run-up to the development of Internet-based alternative publishing in Ireland.

Alternative Media

by Zack Furness

Introduction to Making Our Media Volume 1: Creating New Communication Spaces

by Dorothy Kidd

Co-authored with Clemencia Rodriguez.

Introduction to Rodriguez, C., D. Kidd, & L. Stein (eds.) 2009. Making our Media: Global Initiatives Toward a Democratic Public Sphere. Volume 1. Hampton Press.

Voices of dissent: activists’ engagements in the creation of alternative, autonomous, radical and independent media

by Laurence Cox

(with Alice Mattoni, Andrejs Berdnikovs, Michela Ardizzoni). Interface: a journal for and about social movements vol. 2 (2): 1 - 22, 2010

Overview of the relationship between social movements and alternative media. Overview of the relationship between social movements and alternative media.

La Anomia Comunicacional como Origan de Practicas Comunicativas Alternativas El Caso de la Radio Libre Española

by Jose Emilio Perez Martinez

La Cadena del Water (1976-1986): análisis de una arradio

by Jose Emilio Perez Martinez

Pérez Martínez, José Emilio, 2010, "La Cadena del Water (1976-1986)", in Ángeles Barrio Alonso, Jorge de Hoyos Puente and Rebeca Saavedra Arias (eds.), Nuevos horizontes del pasado. Culturas políticas, identidades y formas de representación, Santander: PubliCan

Natural Medicine for Common Ailments

by Poppy Valentine

This is a collection of non-synthetic health tips for common illnesses. This is a collection of non-synthetic health tips for common illnesses.

Subversive Technologies: Web Radio and Cultural Change

by Alexandros Baltzis

Baltzis, Alexandros
Paper at the conference: "Radio Content in the Digital Age"
European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) - Radio Research Section, Cyprus University of Technology
Limassol, October 14-16, 2009

Like any other medium, radio has been - and in certain ways still is - a major cultural agent, an articulator and at... more Like any other medium, radio has been - and in certain ways still is - a major cultural agent, an articulator and at the same time a developer of values, attitudes, preferences, and ideologies in general, regardless of its organizational and operation model (public service, purely commercial, government controlled, or some hybrid).

This paper focuses on the social and cultural aspects of radio exploring the impact of the Internet on its qualities and functions that turned it into one important component of the music industries and a significant cultural force through its familiar programming practices as a content gatekeeper. The occasional use of the RF broadcast radio to establish social networks and promote alternative cultural expressions through innovative content, especially among young people, seems to be reinforced in the digital environment.

Based on an exploratory study of the Greek case and on previous research, the paper holds that there is a long distance between mere RF webcasting and taping the potential of the Internet it this direction. The paper outlines from this point of view some of the major changes brought about by the Internet radio. Lowering the barriers for audio broadcasting, loosening the ties with the recording industry, enabling new business models, introducing innovative practices and content, and finally favoring new types of radio culture, as well as forms of critical culture and even counterculture, Internet radio might succeed where the RF broadcast radio has failed - at least in the Greek case - namely in promoting content diversity.

Finally, in discussing the potential of the Internet radio as a cultural agent, the paper outlines the directions of the future research.

Help Me Investigate: the social practices of investigative journalism

by Jon Hickman

IAMCR Braga 2010, 18th-22nd July 2010, Braga, Portugal.

The way in which consumers understand the economic value of news is said to have changed. Proponents of “Free Culture”... more The way in which consumers understand the economic value of news is said to have changed. Proponents of “Free Culture” suggest that consumers have weaned themselves off paying for news. In response, interested parties offer investigative journalism as part of their justification for charging for news.

'Help Me Investigate' is an online tool which aims to help individuals "organise and pursue questions of public interest you think should be investigated" (Help Me Investigate, 2010). It provides tools and seeks to build a user base to effect the process of "crowdsourcing" (Brogan & Smith, 2009) of investigations which might normally be within the realm of investigative journalists.
The cost of "quality" journalism has recently been cited by Rupert Murdoch as part of his defence of paywall technology (Bunz, 2009). The crowdsourcing of investigations, which ostensibly offers free labour, challenges the orthodox view that news investigations are expensive. It also challenges the traditional notion of the "professional" investigative journalist, suggesting that we can all aspire to be in the elite cadre of newsmakers: we can be citizen investigative journalists.
Textually, Help Me Investigate presents itself using the genre codes and conventions of social networking.

Through a virtual ethnography I describe the process of an online investigation as it operates both within Help me Investigate, and within a wider ecology of social media (blogs, twitter and physical meet ups). I demonstrate the value of a distributed and layered network in leveraging social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) towards an investigative goal, and posit that distributed investigation, using free labour, can be both informed and valuable. While it is relatively easy for news media companies to profit from this crowdsourced activity, participants in the investigation do not go unrewarded; the social act of investigation enhances the aggregate social capital available within a network, but also confers individual benefits on those who take part.

"Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero" (Review in SFRA Review)

by Lars Schmeink

published in SFRA Review 295 (2011)

Review of both the industrial rock album "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails and the accompanying alternate... more Review of both the industrial rock album "Year Zero" by Nine Inch Nails and the accompanying alternate reality game (ARG) that was played world-wide before and after the release of the record.

The role of Turkish local radio in the construction of a youth community

by Ece Algan

The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 3(2): 75-92, 2005

This study investigates the role of Turkish commercial local radio in the construction of youth community in the city... more This study investigates the role of Turkish commercial local radio in the construction of youth community in the city of Şanlıurfa, which is located in the poor rural southeastern region near the Syrian border. Through in-depth interviews with radio listeners and analysis of their interactions via radio, this paper also examines young people’s attempts to overcome traditional restrictions and social norms through talk radio. By doing so, this study aims to highlight the social role of radio, which is often underestimated in media studies (Scannell 1996), and to challenge Western-centric scholarship on talk radio, which ignores talk radio’s role in community formation. By drawing from Downing’s concept of ‘radical media’, Atton’s definition of ‘alternative media’, and Couldry’s theorization of the ‘symbolic hierarchy of media power,’ this study will discuss why some local commercial stations in Şanlıurfa function as alternative media for the Turkish youth and how they cross the boundary between the ‘media’ and ‘ordinary’ worlds to create a space for themselves.

Keywords: Alternative media, talk radio, local media, Turkey

Shards of Remembrance: One Woman's Archaeology of Community Video'

by Dorothy Kidd

La desregulación de la televisión local en España: el caso de Castilla y León

by Angel Badillo

Doctoral Dissertation, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), 2003

Historical evolution of the Spanish local broadcasting system has been strongly conditioned by the lack of a specific... more Historical evolution of the Spanish local broadcasting system has been strongly conditioned by the lack of a specific regulatory framework. A new situation arrived when the 41/1995 Local Television Act was set up, in the last months of the Government of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, the socialdemocratic party), with a broad parliamentary consensus, but with the opposition of the Partido Popular (PP, the conservative party). The Local Television Act’s aim was to create a model of local television linked to municipal authorities or community groups, with limitations in the number of operators and, among others, in the creation of networks based on local stations. When, in March 1996, the Partido Popular reached the majority at the national parliament, a process of audiovisual deregulation started, also for the local television. In 1997, the Government tried to modify the 1995 Act, but the lack of enough parliamentary consensus avoid this reform to be enacted. Meanwhile, the central Government started the transition to a Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) system. This doctoral dissertation shows, through the detailed field work focused on the local over-the-air broadcasters of the Castilla y Leon autonomous region, how the local television landscape has been metamorphosed conditioned by two important situations: first, the lack of regulatory activity that has explicitly permitted the arrival of hundreds of spectrum occupations all over the country; and second, the publication of terms and frequency uses in the DTT transition, that was used as a tool by the broadcasters to determine where to establish spectrum occupations and the time schedule to obtain economic revenues from their activities. As a consequence, the local broadcasting system has evolved in the five last years showing clear symptoms of industrialization, professionalization, deterritorialization and market orientation, that have already been detected by other scientific research in this field and that are studied, in this doctoral dissertation, with the case of study of the local over-the-air broadcasters in the autonomous region of Castilla y Leon.

Alternative Philippine Voices in Online Climate Change Reporting

by Catherine Candano

Recipient of Asia-Pacific Friedrich Ebert Stiftung grant

Candano, C. (June 2011). Alternative Philippine Voices in Online Climate Change Reporting. Paper presented at Climate... more Candano, C. (June 2011). Alternative Philippine Voices in Online Climate Change Reporting. Paper presented at Climate Change and Communication panel, the Asian Media Information and Communications Centre (AMIC) 20th Annual Conference, Hyderabad

Chair: Assoc. Professor Mohammed Zin Nordin, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia

Indymedia Journalism

by Mark Deuze