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123-697: The San Diego Reader is an alternative press newspaper in San Diego County, California . Published weekly since October 1972, the Reader is distributed free on Wednesday and Thursday via street boxes and cooperating retail outlets. Founder Jim Holman, a navy veteran, worked for the Chicago Reader before starting up in San Diego. The initial press run of the San Diego Reader was 20,000 copies. In 1989, it

246-405: A battle is fought not only over influence but over the control of communication flows that affect behavior while their strategic intentions are kept hidden as much as possible. Although Structural Transformation was (and is) one of the most influential works in contemporary German philosophy and political science, it took 27 years until an English version appeared on the market in 1989. Based on

369-401: A cause". Radio has been a significant form of alternative media due to its low cost, ease of use, and near ubiquity. 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

492-688: A civil rights 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

615-489: A commercial enterprise but also a platform designed to encourage cultural participation by ordinary citizens. Although YouTube aimed to be foremost a commercial enterprise, nevertheless, it has become a community media as one of the forms of alternative media. Scholars assume that YouTube's commercial drive may have increased the probability of participation in online video culture for a broader spectrum of participants than before. This idea allows one to shift our concern away from

738-466: A common judgment about them". The public sphere can be seen as "a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk" and "a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed". Describing the emergence of the public sphere in the 18th century, Habermas noted that the public realm, or sphere, originally was "coextensive with public authority", while "the private sphere comprised civil society in

861-552: A conference on the occasion of the English translation, at which Habermas himself attended, Craig Calhoun (1992) edited Habermas and the Public Sphere – a thorough dissection of Habermas' bourgeois public sphere by scholars from various academic disciplines. The core criticism at the conference was directed towards the above stated "institutional criteria": Nancy Fraser identified the fact that marginalized groups are excluded from

984-520: 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. Alternative media have frequently been studied as a manifestation of participatory culture , in which citizens do not act as consumers only, but as contributors or producers as well. By opening up access to media production, participatory culture

1107-450: A democracy. This idea is tied very closely to community media (see next section). Community media includes citizens′ media, participatory media, activist and radical media as well as the broader forms of communication in which local or regional specific platforms are engaged. Like other forms of alternative media, community media seeks to bypass the commercialization of media. The elimination or avoidance of sole ownership or sponsorship

1230-473: A different or dissident viewpoint than that provided by major mainstream and corporate newspapers , magazines , and other print media. Factsheet Five publisher Mike Gunderloy described the alternative press as "sort of the 'grown-up' underground press . Whole Earth , the Boston Phoenix , and Mother Jones are the sorts of things that fall in this classification." In contrast, Gunderloy described

1353-559: A few of its participants and are seldom in contexts where we and they directly interact, we join these exchanges because they are discussing the same matters". In order to communicate within the public sphere, "those who enter any given arena must share a reference world for their discourse to produce awareness for shared interests and public opinions about them". This world consists of common meanings and cultural norms from which interaction can take place. The rhetorical public sphere has several primary features: The rhetorical public sphere

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1476-480: A form of active citizenship". Approaches to the academic study of alternative media attempt to understand the ways in which these media are significant, each emphasizing a different aspect of media, including the role of the public sphere, social movements, and the participation by communities that create the media. One way of understanding alternative media is to consider their role in the process of democratic communication. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas proposed that

1599-511: A group of interested individuals who engage in vernacular discourse about a specific issue. "Publics may be repressed, distorted, or responsible, but any evaluation of their actual state requires that we inspect the rhetorical environment as well as the rhetorical act out of which they evolved, for these are the conditions that constitute their individual character". These people formed rhetorical public spheres that were based in discourse, not necessarily orderly discourse but any interactions whereby

1722-513: A healthy democratic community requires a space where rational debate can take place between engaged citizens. It is essential that the dialogue in this public sphere occurs outside the control of any authority so that citizens can exchange ideas as equals. This translates to the need for free speech and a free press. In Habermas's idea of the public sphere, participation is open to everyone, all participants are considered equal, and any issue can be raised for debate. However, this view fails to note

1845-440: A human rights social movement using alternative media is the group WITNESS . WITNESS is a human rights non-profit organization and its mission is to partner with on-the-ground organizations to support the documentation of human rights violations and their consequences, in order to further public engagement, policy change, and justice. They rely on video recordings using technology such as handheld camcorders and smartphones to capture

1968-399: A lack of representation of marginalized groups that are unable to voice their interests effectively; (c) Experts who are credited with professional or scientific knowledge in some specialized area and are invited to give advice; (d) Moral entrepreneurs who generate public attention for supposedly neglected issues; (e) Intellectuals who have gained, unlike advocates or moral entrepreneurs,

2091-406: A large public sphere, where people can form their own opinions and discuss different things in the comments. The research by Edgerly, et al. found that the analyzed YouTube comments were diverse. They argue that this is a possible indicator that YouTube provides space for public discussion. They also found that YouTube videos' style influences the nature of the commentary. Finally, they concluded that

2214-453: A means by which many people can gather information about a few and, at the same time, a few can appear before many; thanks to the media, it is primarily those who exercise power, rather than those over whom power is exercised, who are subjected to a certain kind of visibility". However, Thompson also acknowledges that "media and visibility is a double-edged sword" meaning that even though they can be used to show an improved image (by managing

2337-407: 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. 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

2460-567: A national public service broadcaster and commercial services. 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. 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. Alternative radio often, though not always, takes

2583-423: A new civic society emerged in the eighteenth century. Driven by a need for open commercial arenas where news and matters of common concern could be freely exchanged and discussed—accompanied by growing rates of literacy, accessibility to literature, and a new kind of critical journalism—a separate domain from ruling authorities started to evolve across Europe. "In its clash with the arcane and bureaucratic practices of

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2706-577: A new conceptual framework of the public sphere that acknowledges how both thoughtful discussions as well as ones which express feelings in an overt way needs to be developed. Some, like Colin Sparks, note that a new global public sphere ought to be created in the wake of increasing globalization and global institutions, which operate at the supranational level. However, the key questions for him were, whether any media exists in terms of size and access to fulfil this role. The traditional media, he notes, are close to

2829-494: A new form of "mediated publicness", whose main characteristics are: This mediated publicness has altered the power relations in a way in which not only the many are visible to the few but the few can also now see the many: "Whereas the Panopticon renders many people visible to a few and enables power to be exercised over the many by subjecting them to a state of permanent visibility, the development of communication media provides

2952-502: A number of limitations. Edgerly et al. say that the affirmative discourse presupposes that YouTube can be an influential player in the political process and that it can serve as an influential force to politically mobilize young people. YouTube has allowed anyone and everyone to be able to get any political knowledge they wish. The authors mention critiques that say YouTube is built around the popularity of videos with sensationalist content. It has also allowed people to broadcast themselves for

3075-407: 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 ), and hyper-local blogging are just a few ways that citizens can produce media content to participate in

3198-459: A perceived personal reputation in some field (e.g., as writers or academics) and who engage, unlike experts and lobbyists, spontaneously in public discourse with the declared intention of promoting general interests. Libraries have been inextricably tied to educational institutions in the modern era having developed within democratic societies. Libraries took on aspects of the public sphere (as did classrooms), even while public spheres transformed in

3321-436: A platform for airing one's opinions and agendas for public discussion. The emergence of a bourgeois public sphere was particularly supported by the 18th-century liberal democracy making resources available to this new political class to establish a network of institutions like publishing enterprises, newspapers and discussion forums, and the democratic press was the main tool to execute this. The key feature of this public sphere

3444-702: A platform for artists and fans to share pictures of street art from around the world. Websites like Streetsy.com and WoosterCollective.com are among the most popular of street art sharing sites. Performance as an alternative medium uses theater, song, and performance art as a means of engaging audiences and furthering social agendas. Performance art is an avant garde art form that typically uses live performances to challenge traditional forms of visual art. It operates as "the antithesis of theatre, challenging orthodox art forms and cultural norms." Playing an important role in social and cultural movements from Dada and Surrealism to Post-Minimalism , performance art reflects

3567-543: A public sphere. Discussions about the media have therefore been of particular importance in public sphere theory. According to Habermas, there are two types of actors without whom no political public sphere could be put to work: professionals in the media system and politicians. For Habermas, there are five types of actors who make their appearance on the virtual stage of an established public sphere: (a) Lobbyists who represent special interest groups; (b) Advocates who either represent general interest groups or substitute for

3690-536: A public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. Through this work, he gave a historical-sociological account of the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a "bourgeois" public sphere based on rational-critical debate and discussion: Habermas stipulates that, due to specific historical circumstances,

3813-448: A response to the shortcomings of professional journalism. It engages in journalistic practices but is driven by goals other than profit making, has different ideals, and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy. Participatory media approaches consider participation in producing media content as well as in making decisions about media production processes as a defining feature of alternative media. Participatory culture can be realized in

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3936-444: A spatial concept, the social sites or arenas where meanings are articulated, distributed, and negotiated, as well as the collective body constituted by, and in this process, "the public". The work is still considered the foundation of contemporary public sphere theories, and most theorists cite it when discussing their own theories. The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as

4059-487: A study by S. Edgerly et al. focused on the ability of YouTube to serve as an online public sphere. The researchers examined a large sample of video comments using the California Proposition 8 (2008) as an example. The authors argue that some scholars think the online public sphere is a space where a wide range of voices can be expressed due to the "low barrier of entry" and interactivity. However, they also point at

4182-511: A study in 2009 in order to establish whether the Internet offers a better and broader communication environment compared to quality newspapers. They analyzed how the issue of human genome research was portrayed between 1999 and 2001 in popular quality newspapers in both Germany and the United States in comparison to the way it appeared on search engines at the time of their research. Their intention

4305-495: 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 an opportunity for cultural exchange and

4428-472: 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 otherwise banal content in a manner which re-aligns, re-negotiates, or exposes the politics at work within it. Public sphere The public sphere ( German : Öffentlichkeit )

4551-442: A universal public sphere, and thus it was impossible to claim that one group would, in fact, be inclusive. However, she claimed that marginalized groups formed their own public spheres, and termed this concept a subaltern counter public or counter-public. Fraser worked from Habermas' basic theory because she saw it to be " an indispensable resource " but questioned the actual structure and attempted to address her concerns. She made

4674-521: A widely shared understanding that racially informed media provide a 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's magazine served to empower

4797-447: Is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action. A "Public" is "of or concerning the people as a whole." Such a discussion is called public debate and is defined as the expression of views on matters that are of concern to the public—often, but not always, with opposing or diverging views being expressed by participants in

4920-538: Is becoming widespread and a necessary approach to explaining the success and impact of ethnic or minority media, as well as to embrace the changing ways in which people 'use' their media. There are related aims found in alternative media studies and subaltern studies , as a concern for disenfranchised and oppressed voices pervades both fields. Subaltern studies draw on Antonio Gramsci 's discussion of "subaltern" groups, that is, groups of people considered to be of inferior rank socially, economically, and politically. One of

5043-1052: Is believed to further democracy, civic engagement, and creative expression. Participatory culture pre-dates the Internet. Amateur Press Associations are a form of participatory culture that emerged late in the 19th century. Members of such associations typeset and print their own publications, which are mailed through a network of subscribers. Zines , community-supported radio stations, and other types of projects were predecessors of blogs, podcasts, wikis, and social networks. Web services such as Tumblr , Imgur , Reddit , Medium, TikTok, and YouTube , among others, allow users to distribute original content to wider audiences, which makes media production more participatory. Alternative media are also created by participatory journalism as citizens play an active role in collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information. This form of alternative and activist news-gathering and reporting functions outside of mainstream media institutions, often as

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5166-453: Is dominated by (bio- and natural) scientific actors; popular inclusion does not occur". The scholars argue that the search algorithms select the sources of information based on the popularity of their links. "Their gatekeeping, in contrast to the old mass media, relies mainly on technical characteristics of websites". For Gerhards and Schäfer the Internet is not an alternative public sphere because less prominent voices end up being silenced by

5289-405: Is guaranteed to all citizens". This notion of the public becomes evident in terms such as public health, public education, public opinion or public ownership. They are opposed to the notions of private health, private education, private opinion, and private ownership. The notion of the public is intrinsically connected to the notion of the private. Habermas stresses that the notion of the public

5412-431: Is key in establishing—as well as challenging—their subaltern status. This particular body of scholarship is useful to the study and discussion of alternative media due to their shared preoccupation with the ability of disenfranchised peoples to participate and contribute to mainstream hegemonic discourses, especially in regards to ethnic and racial media in which these groups speak from a subaltern position. This connection

5535-473: Is motivated by a desire to be free of oversight or obligation to cater to a specific agenda. Community media is often categorized as grassroots, a description that applies to both the financial structure and the process of content creation. While there is diversity in community media, which varies by media platform (radio, TV, web or print), it is typical that the media source is open to the public/community to submit material and content. This open policy aligns with

5658-415: Is music that is produced separate from commercial record labels. Professor David Hesmondhalgh describes indie music's alternative nature as a "hard-headed network of post-punk companies which made significant challenges to the commercial organization of cultural production favoured by the major record companies." Its subversive roots of sound or lyrics and alternative models of distribution distinguish it from

5781-421: Is not an arena of market relations but rather one of the discursive relations, a theater for debating and deliberating rather than for buying and selling". These distinctions between "state apparatuses, economic markets, and democratic associations... are essential to democratic theory". The people themselves came to see the public sphere as a regulatory institution against the authority of the state. The study of

5904-461: Is not" discussed. Benhabib argues for feminists to counter the popular public discourse in their own counter public. The public sphere was long regarded as men's domain whereas women were supposed to inhabit the private domestic sphere. A distinct ideology that prescribed separate spheres for women and men emerged during the Industrial Revolution . The concept of heteronormativity

6027-408: Is related to the notion of the common. For Hannah Arendt , the public sphere is therefore "the common world" that "gathers us together and yet prevents our falling over each other". Habermas defines the public sphere as a "society engaged in critical public debate". Conditions of the public sphere are according to Habermas: Most contemporary conceptualizations of the public sphere are based on

6150-547: Is still controversial whether YouTube is just another conduit for strengthening cultural imperialism or one of the alternative media. In association with experimental and innovative modes of production and collaboration, aesthetics in alternative media can be a political tool used to subvert dominant power. Like many makers of alternative media, scholar Crispin Sartwell identifies politics as an aesthetic environment. As such, these art political systems not only use aesthetics as

6273-670: Is strengthened in the work of alternative media scholar Clemencia Rodriguez . In her discussion of citizenship, Rodriguez comments that "Citizens have to enact their citizenship on a day-to-day basis, through their participation in everyday political practices...As citizens actively participate in actions that reshape their own identities, the identities of others, and their social environments, they produce power." So it could be said that by subaltern groups creating alternative media, they are indeed expressing their citizenship, producing their power, and letting their voice be heard. The alternative press consists of printed publications that provide

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6396-632: 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, 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, which "... provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate

6519-582: Is the group Greenpeace . 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 as well as performance art. An example of

6642-403: Is used to describe the way in which those who fall outside of the basic male/female dichotomy of gender or whose sexual orientations are other than heterosexual cannot meaningfully claim their identities, causing a disconnect between their public selves and their private selves. Michael Warner made the observation that the idea of an inclusive public sphere makes the assumption that we are all

6765-839: The Prometheus Radio Project (both in the United States), and Radio Sagarmatha (Nepal). Alternative film and video are generally produced outside of the mainstream film and video industries and features content and/or style that is rarely seen in mainstream product. 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). Participatory video projects in which marginalized or under-resourced groups tell their stories through video demonstrate

6888-490: The 1960s and 1970s, radical video making reached an apex in the 1980s, as technology became more accessible. Public access television provided a broadcast outlet for oftentimes punk and hip-hop-influenced radical cultural critique. 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. Today, portable, accessible recording technology and

7011-477: 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. 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

7134-408: The 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 folksonomies. Misplaced Pages is an excellent example of this genre. Often considered guerilla-art , street art operates free from the confines of

7257-552: The absolutist state, the emergent bourgeoisie gradually replaced a public sphere in which the ruler's power was merely represented before the people with a sphere in which state authority was publicly monitored through informed and critical discourse by the people". In his historical analysis, Habermas points out three so-called "'institutional criteria" as preconditions for the emergence of the new public sphere. The discursive arenas, such as Britain's coffee houses, France's salons, and Germany's Tischgesellschaften "may have differed in

7380-455: The anti-abortion California Catholic Daily website from the same offices. Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, 30 employees agreed to take pay cuts equivalent to half of their pay. Alternative media In contrast to mainstream mass media, alternative media tend to be "non-commercial projects that advocate the interests of those excluded from the mainstream", for example,

7503-508: The audience of these media must be involved in the creation of what is put out in alternative media. The second is that it has to be different from the mainstream. The third is that it should create a perspective different from that of the state and major corporations. The fourth property is that alternative media must "establish different types of relationships with the market and/or the state." As defined by Atton and Hamilton, "Alternative journalism proceeds from dissatisfaction not only with

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7626-430: The bases for shared awareness of common issues, shared interests, tendencies of extent and strength of difference and agreement, and self-constitution as a public whose opinions bear on the organization of society." This concept that the public sphere acts as a medium in which public opinion is formed as analogous to a lava lamp. Just as the lamp's structure changes, with its lava separating and forming new shapes, so does

7749-595: The bourgeois public sphere shifted political power from "a repressive mode of domination to a hegemonic one". Rather than rule by power, there was now rule by the majority ideology. To deal with this hegemonic domination, Fraser argues that repressed groups form "Subaltern counter-publics" that are "parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counterdiscourses to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs". Benhabib notes that in Habermas' idea of

7872-452: The brutality of the police and their violent acts on the peaceful protesters. For more information about social movements, and alternative media, see social movement theory . Alternative media tend to be activist by nature. Social movements in areas such as human rights , the environmental movement , and civil rights produce alternative media to further their goals, spread awareness, and inspire participation and support. An example of

7995-414: The centers of art and literary criticism, which gradually widened to include even the economic and the political disputes as matters of discussion. In French salons, as Habermas says, "opinion became emancipated from the bonds of economic dependence". Any new work, or a book or a musical composition had to get its legitimacy in these places. It not only paved a forum for self-expression but in fact had become

8118-666: The commercial record companies. Some alternative media can be associated with the political left in the United States , the political right in the United States , and various political positions in the United Kingdom . Primarily concerned with the growing role of new media in alternative media projects, communication scholar Leah Lievrouw identifies five genres of contemporary new media based alternative and activist media: culture jamming, alternative computing, participatory journalism, mediated mobilization, and commons knowledge. Thinking of current forms of alternative media in terms of

8241-483: The creation of new, alternative communities that can provide a voice for those normally marginalized by the mainstream media. In addition, the Internet has also led to an alternative form of programming, which allows both professionals and amateurs to subvert or evade commercial and political restraints on open access to information and information technologies. Some examples of alternative computing are hacking, open source software or systems, and file sharing. Lastly,

8364-471: The debate over the public sphere involves what is the basic theoretical structure of the public sphere, how information is deliberated in the public sphere, and what influence the public sphere has over society. Jürgen Habermas claims "We call events and occasions 'public' when they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs". This 'public sphere' is a "realm of our social life in which something approaching public opinion can be formed. Access

8487-585: The discussion. Public debate takes place mostly through the mass media, but also at meetings or through social media , academic publications and government policy documents. The term was originally coined by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas who defined the public sphere as "made up of private people gathered together as a public and articulating the needs of society with the state". Communication scholar Gerard A. Hauser defines it as "a discursive space in which individuals and groups associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach

8610-420: The dominant beliefs and values of a culture and have been described as "counter-hegemonic" by adherents of Antonio Gramsci 's theory of cultural hegemony ; however, since the definition of alternative media as merely counter to the mainstream is limiting, some approaches to the study of alternative media also address the question of how and where these media are created, as well as the dynamic relationship between

8733-413: The elevation or empowerment of a disenfranchised or marginalized group, based on racial, ethnic or cultural identity. Historically, these forms of media have served a 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

8856-500: The false contradiction between market-driven and non-market-driven culture towards the tensions between corporate logics and unruly and emergent traits of participatory culture, and the limits of YouTube model for cross-cultural diversity and global communication. In theory, YouTube stands as a site of cosmopolitan cultural citizenship. Uploading foreign soap opera episodes and dividing into several pieces to pass YouTube's content limits, can be seen as acts of cultural citizenship similar to

8979-405: The form of community radio , which is generally understood as participatory, open, non-profit, and made by and for a community. These radio stations may broadcast legally or illegally, as pirate radio . Alternative radio is a global phenomenon. Examples of community and alternative radio endeavors include Tilos Rádió (Hungary), Missinipi Broadcasting Corporation (Canada), Pacifica Radio and

9102-424: The formal art world. In the form of graffiti , stencil, mural, and print, street art appropriates or alters public spaces as a means of protest and social commentary. Important aspects of street art as an alternative form are its blend of aesthetics and social engagement, use of urban spaces, and interaction with the social landscape of the area in which the art is made. The street art movement gained popularity in

9225-434: The gatekeepers of traditional, mainstream media and share the information and perspectives these citizens deem important. Second, the Internet provides an alternative space for mobilization through the cultivation of interpersonal networks, collective action towards social change, and making information much readily accessible. Typically, among those with deviant, dissident or non-traditional views, Internet platforms allow for

9348-426: The genre not only allows one 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." In other words, one can begin to understand how the creators and participants of alternative new media projects actively shape their communication practices. YouTube is considered to be not only

9471-399: The growth of capitalistic economy led to an uneven distribution of wealth, thus widening economic polarity. Suddenly the media became a tool of political forces and a medium for advertising rather than the medium from which the public got their information on political matters. This resulted in limiting access to the public sphere and the political control of the public sphere was inevitable for

9594-467: The ideas expressed in Jürgen Habermas ' book The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere – An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society , which is a translation of his Habilitationsschrift , Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit:Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft . The German term Öffentlichkeit (public sphere) encompasses a variety of meanings and it implies

9717-494: The inherent exclusion of women and minorities (and their interests) from the debate in the public sphere. In light of this social inequality, philosopher Nancy Fraser argues for the importance of multiple independent public spheres, in which members of subordinated groups can first deliberate their issues and concerns among themselves and later assert those issues into the larger public sphere. The alternative media associated with these counter-public spheres are critical in developing

9840-415: The interested public engages each other. This interaction can take the form of institutional actors as well as the basic "street rhetoric" that "open[s] a dialogue between competing factions." The spheres themselves formed around the issues that were being deliberated. The discussion itself would reproduce itself across the spectrum of interested publics "even though we lack personal acquaintance with all but

9963-582: The internet allow increasing opportunities for global participation in the production, consumption, and exchange of alternative video content. With the increasing importance attributed to digital technologies, questions have arisen about where digital media fit in the dichotomy between alternative and mainstream media. First, blogs, Facebook , Twitter and other similar sites, while not necessarily created to be information media, increasingly are being used to spread news and information, potentially acting as alternative media as they allow ordinary citizens to bypass

10086-438: 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

10209-418: The link between content and user engagement. Through both content and sentiment analysis, it was suggested that the sentiment of the language used in the titles of the videos had an impact upon the public, with negatively sentimented titles generated more user engagement. Buckley suggested that due to the aspect of emotionality that is present in news content that due to the ongoing process of media hybridization,

10332-406: The macro sense. These contextual conditions led to a fundamental conservative rethinking of civil society institutions like schools and libraries. Habermas argues that under certain conditions, the media act to facilitate discourse in a public sphere. The rise of the Internet has brought about a resurgence of scholars applying theories of the public sphere to Internet technologies. For example,

10455-403: The mainstream coverage of certain issues and topics but also with the epistemology of news. Its critique emphasizes alternatives to, inter alia,  conventions of news sources and representation; the inverted pyramid of news texts; the hierarchical and capitalized economy of commercial journalism; the professional, elite basis of journalism as a practice; the professional norm of objectivity; and

10578-450: The mainstream news coverage of the Occupy movement against coverage from alternative press several trends emerge. First, mainstream media used confusion over the event as the dominant frame while alternative media focused on what the demonstrators were actually trying to accomplish. Second, the mainstream media placed the protesters at fault of any violence while the alternative media focused on

10701-407: The majority of users". They also stress that some critics have voiced the concern that there is a lack of seriousness in political communication on social media platforms . Moreover, lines between professional media coverage and user-generated content would blur on social media. The authors conclude that social media provides new opportunities for political participation; however, they warn users of

10824-600: The media and the participants that create and use them. There are various definitions of "alternative media". John Downing , for example, defines "radical alternative media" as media "that express an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, priorities, and perspectives". 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. Christian Fuchs also argues that alternative media must have four distinct properties. The first being that

10947-452: The media sharing practices of diverse communities identified by Cunningham and Nguyen (2000). However, people who have the highest chance of encountering other cultural citizens are those who have the access to various contents, information and platforms; this is commonly referred to as the 'participation gap'. The notion of participation gap makes both digital literacy and digital divide such important issues for cultural politics. Therefore, it

11070-451: The modern capitalistic forces to operate and thrive in the competitive economy. Therewith emerged a new sort of influence, i.e., media power, which, used for purposes of manipulation, once and for all took care of the innocence of the principle of publicity. The public sphere, simultaneously restructured and dominated by the mass media, developed into an arena infiltrated by power in which, by means of topic selection and topical contributions,

11193-453: The most significant questions in subaltern studies is posed by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , "Can the subaltern speak?" which she asks in her seminal essay of the same name. Spivak investigates whether the subaltern has a voice within hegemonic political discourses, and if so if their voices are being heard, allowing them to participate. This is important, as the subaltern's ability to participate in politics and other social and cultural practices

11316-418: The narrower sense, that is to say, the realm of commodity exchange and of social labor". Whereas the "sphere of public authority" dealt with the state, or realm of the police, and the ruling class, or the feudal authorities (church, princes and nobility) the "authentic 'public sphere ' ", in a political sense, arose at that time from within the private realm, specifically, in connection with literary activities,

11439-464: 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

11562-505: The needs and identity of the group and in challenging the larger dominant public sphere. A feminist counter-public sphere is, for example, responsible for circulating the view that women's issues such as domestic abuse and reproductive rights are deserving of debate in the larger public sphere. Social movements are a type of collective action. They involve large, sometimes informal, groups or organizations which focus on specific political or social issues and promote, instigate, resist or undo

11685-408: The observation that "Habermas stops short of developing a new, post-bourgeois model of the public sphere". Fraser attempted to evaluate Habermas' bourgeois public sphere, discuss some assumptions within his model, and offer a modern conception of the public sphere. In the historical reevaluation of the bourgeois public sphere, Fraser argues that rather than opening up the political realm to everyone,

11808-542: The political environment of the time. While performance art is often relegated to high art, street theater is typically used in a grassroots fashion, utilizing local communities for performance or conversation. It can be used as a form of guerilla theater to protest, like in the case of The Living Theatre which is dedicated to transforming the hierarchy of power in society through experimental theater. Certain genres of music and musical performance can be categorized as alternative media. Independent music, or indie music ,

11931-482: The poor, political and ethnic minorities, labor groups, and LGBT identities. These media disseminate marginalized 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 posted on YouTube in response to a rise in gay teen suicides at the time of its creation. Alternative media challenge

12054-429: The possibility for access and participation in video-making to empower those involved, circulate representations unseen in mainstream media, and challenge existing power relations. 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. Though initiated in

12177-507: The production of 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 into 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

12300-544: 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. An example of how the mainstream media problematically covers social movements is the Occupy movement , which began with Occupy Wall Street in September 2011. The Occupy movement protested against social and economic inequality around

12423-451: The public sphere centers on the idea of participatory democracy , and how public opinion becomes political action. The ideology of the public sphere theory is that the government's laws and policies should be steered by the public sphere and that the only legitimate governments are those that listen to the public sphere. "Democratic governance rests on the capacity of and opportunity for citizens to engage in enlightened debate". Much of

12546-487: The public sphere in this true sense. Nevertheless, limitations are imposed by the market and concentration of ownership. At present, the global media fail to constitute the basis of a public sphere for at least three reasons. Similarly, he notes that the internet, for all its potential, does not meet the criteria for a public sphere and that unless these are "overcome, there will be no sign of a global public sphere". German scholars Jürgen Gerhards and Mike S. Schäfer conducted

12669-446: The public sphere than previous models. He foregrounds the rhetorical nature of public spheres, suggesting that public spheres form around "the ongoing dialogue on public issues" rather than the identity of the group engaged in the discourse. Rather than arguing for an all-inclusive public sphere, or the analysis of tension between public spheres, he suggested that publics were formed by active members of society around issues. They are

12792-463: The public sphere's creation of opportunities for discourse to address public opinion, thereby forming new discussions of rhetoric. The lava of the public which holds together the public arguments is the public conversation. Habermas argues that the public sphere requires "specific means for transmitting information and influencing those who receive it". Habermas' argument shows that the media are of particular importance for constituting and maintaining

12915-425: The public sphere, the distinction between public and private issues separates issues that normally affect women (issues of "reproduction, nurture and care for the young, the sick, and the elderly") into the private realm and out of the discussion in the public sphere. She argues that if the public sphere is to be open to any discussion that affects the population, there cannot be distinctions between "what is" and "what

13038-475: The public sphere. The sociologists Brian Loader and Dan Mercea give an overview of this discussion. They argue that social media offers increasing opportunities for political communication and enable democratic capacities for political discussion within the virtual public sphere. The effect would be that citizens could challenge governments and corporations' political and economic power. Additionally, new forms of political participation and information sources for

13161-405: The risks of accessing unreliable sources. The Internet impacts the virtual public sphere in many ways, but is not a free utopian platform as some observers argued at the beginning of its history. John Thompson criticises the traditional idea of public sphere by Habermas, as it is centred mainly in face-to-face interactions. On the contrary, Thompson argues that modern society is characterized by

13284-417: The same without judgments about our fellows. He argues that we must achieve some sort of disembodied state in order to participate in a universal public sphere without being judged. His observations point to a homosexual counter public, and offers the idea that homosexuals must otherwise remain "closeted" in order to participate in the larger public discourse. Gerard Hauser proposed a different direction for

13407-479: The search engines' algorithms. "Search engines might actually silence societal debate by giving more space to established actors and institutions". Another tactic that supports this view is astroturfing . The Guardian columnist George Monbiot said that Astroturfing software, "has the potential to destroy the internet as a forum for constructive debate. It jeopardizes the notion of online democracy". There has been an academic debate about how social media impacts

13530-651: The size and compositions of their publics, the style of their proceedings, the climate of their debates, and their topical orientations", but "they all organized discussion among people that tended to be ongoing; hence they had a number of institutional criteria in common": Habermas argued that the bourgeois society cultivated and upheld these criteria. The public sphere was well established in various locations including coffee shops and salons, areas of society where various people could gather and discuss matters that concerned them. The coffee houses in London society at this time became

13653-620: The 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 an 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, stigmatize, or ignore social movement viewpoints. They may deny social movements' access or representation at critical moments in their development, employ message frames that undermine or weaken public perceptions of

13776-431: The subordinate role of the audience as a receiver." Journalistic Practices says "Alternative media not only allow but also facilitate the participation (in its more radical meaning) of its members (or the community) in both the produced content and the content-producing organization.' In this sense, participation in alternative media as described and reflected upon by the participants in this study can best be understood as

13899-564: The underground press as "the real thing, before it gets slick, co-opted, and profitable. The underground press comes out in small quantities, is often illegible, treads on the thin ice of unmentionable subjects, and never carries ads for designer jeans." An example of alternative media is tactical media , which uses 'hit-and-run' tactics to bring attention to an emerging problem. Often tactical media attempts to expose large corporations that control sources of mainstream media. One prominent NGO dedicated to tactical media practices and info-activism

14022-405: The users emerge with the Internet that can be used, for example, in online campaigns. However, the two authors point out that social media's dominant uses are entertainment, consumerism, and content sharing among friends. Loader and Mercea point out that "individual preferences reveal an unequal spread of social ties with a few giant nodes such as Google , Yahoo , Facebook and YouTube attracting

14145-447: The values of community media to maintain a democratic approach and ethos. Historically community media has served to provide an alternative political voice. Across the world forms of community, media are used to elevate the needs and discourse of a specific space, typically connected by geographical, cultural, social, or economic similarities. Minority community media can be both localized and national, serving to disseminate information to

14268-404: The video's ideological stances influenced the language of the comments. The findings of the work suggest that YouTube is a public sphere platform. Additional work by S. Buckley reflected on the role that news content, specifically US cable news, contributed towards the formation of the public sphere. His research analysed a total of 1239 videos uploaded by five news organisations and investigated

14391-418: The world of letters. This new public sphere spanned the public and the private realms, and "through the vehicle of public opinion it put the state in touch with the needs of society". "This area is conceptually distinct from the state: it [is] a site for the production and circulation of discourses that can in principle be critical of the state." The public sphere "is also distinct from the official economy; it

14514-567: The world's attention and viscerally communicate human rights abuses. They have documented human rights abuses from the police in the favelas of Brazil, children soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, human trafficking in Brazil and the United States, and many other human rights issues, all through the use of alternative media. An example of an environment movement using alternative media

14637-435: The world, its primary goal being to make the economic and political relations in all societies less vertically hierarchical and more flatly distributed. Among the movement's primary concerns is the system which allows large corporations and the global financial system to manipulate the world in a way that disproportionately benefits a wealthy minority, undermines democracy, and disregards environmental sustainability. In comparing

14760-423: Was characterized by five rhetorical norms from which it can be gauged and criticized. How well the public sphere adheres to these norms determine the effectiveness of the public sphere under the rhetorical model. Those norms are: In all this Hauser believes a public sphere is a "discursive space in which strangers discuss issues they perceive to be of consequence for them and their group. Its rhetorical exchanges are

14883-552: Was its separation from the power of both the church and the government due to its access to a variety of resources, both economic and social. As Habermas argues, in due course, this sphere of rational and universalistic politics , free from both the economy and the State, was destroyed by the same forces that initially established it. This collapse was due to the consumeristic drive that infiltrated society, so citizens became more concerned about consumption than political actions. Furthermore,

15006-754: Was printing 131,000 copies a week and in 2015, the circulation was 90,000. In 1988, the Reader moved into a former restaurant in Little Italy and moved to offices in Golden Hill in 2012. In a 1989 story about the paper, the Los Angeles Times wrote that it had developed a reputation as being "liberal", and contrasted that to Holman's morality-driven rules for the paper, such as refusing to publish advertisements promoting abortion services and prohibiting personal advertisements seeking homosexual relationships (later modified to prohibit all personal ads). He also runs

15129-422: Was to analyze what actors and what sort of opinions the subject generated in both print and the Internet and verify whether the online space proved to be a more democratic public sphere, with a wider range of sources and views. Gerhards and Schäfer say they have found "only minimal evidence to support the idea that the internet is a better communication space as compared to print media". "In both media, communication

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