Alternative Media
Alternative media are media that differ from established or dominant types of media in terms of their content, production, or distribution. Alternative media take many forms including print, audio, video, Internet and street art. Some examples include the counter-culture zines of the 1960s, ethnic and indigenous media such as the First People's television network in Canada (later rebranded Aboriginal Peoples Television Network), and more recently online open publishing journalism sites such as Indymedia.
While mainstream mass media, on the whole, represent government and corporate interests
, 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, 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 created on YouTube in response to a rise in gay teen suicides at the time it was created.
Alternative media challenge 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 the media and the participants that create and use them.
Definitions
Christian Fuchs also argues that alternative media must have four distinct properties. The first being that 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.
Social Movement Media
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 instigate, resist or undo 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 [media].
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 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 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.