This book offers an overview of global alternative media activity, before moving on to provide information about alternative media production and how to get involved in it.

Drawing examples from the UK and the US, this volume offers an introduction to alternative media. It includes radical media as well as newer cultural forms such as zines, fanzines, and personal Web sites.

"A provocative, inspiring and challenging intervention in both journalism and media studies.... Alternative Journalism is that rare book that services students as much as scholars. It widens the trajectory of media studies and creates different modes of reading, writing and thinking... It offers an alternative history beyond the tales of great men, great newspapers, great editors and great technologies. It adds value and content to overused and ambiguous words such as "community" and "citizenship" and captures the spark of new information environments." - THE, (Times Higher Education) Alternative Journalism investigates and analyses the diverse forms and genres of journalism that have arisen as challenges to mainstream news coverage. From the radical content of emancipatory media to the dizzying range of citizen journalist blogs and fanzine subcultures, this book charts the historical and cultural practices of this diverse and globalized phenomenon. This exploration goes to the heart of journalism itself, prompting a critical inquiry into the epistemology of news, the professional norms of objectivity, the elite basis of journalism and the hierarchical commerce of news production. In investigating the challenges to media power presented by alternative journalism, Atton addresses not just the issues of politics and empowerment but also the journalism of popular culture and the everyday. The result is essential reading for students of journalism - both mainstream and alternative.

This book offers a fresh perspective on central questions related to right-wing alternative media: Can right-wing media be alternative? Why do they exist? Are they a threat to the existing order and what have the reactions been from mainstream politicians and media actors? The rise and success of right-wing populism in the political life of many western countries, along with several new and apparently successful alternative media operations on the right, has caused surprise and confusion among researchers and debaters. How should this challenge to mainstream politics and media be understood? Journalistic, political and academic discourse has struggled to explain these tendencies and tend to focus on sensational and extreme examples, with little attention directed towards other aspects. This book critically discusses existing theoretical frameworks related to alternative media in general, analysing a wide scope of cases to illustrate the diversity of voices in alternative media on the right and highlighting the importance of intellectual coolness and common sense in discussions about this important but ideologically and politically charged area. An important addition to the current discourse of contemporary media, Right-Wing Alternative Media is ideal for researchers, students and anyone interested in politics and public discourse.

Resisting the News brings together unique insights from activists and alternative-media users to offer a distinctive perspective on the problems of journalism today—and how to fix them. Using critical-cultural theory and, in particular, the conceptual frameworks of ritual communication and interpretive communities, this book examines how audiences filter their interpretations of mainstream news through the prisms of their identities and experiences with alternative media and political protest. Jennifer Rauch gives voice to alternative-media audiences and illuminates the cultural resources, values, assumptions, critical skills, and discursive strategies through which they make sense of their news environments. Drawing on a 15-year research project, Rauch employs a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and quasi-ethnographic methods, including focus groups, media-use diaries, close-ended surveys, and open-ended questions, to paint a layered portrait of liberal and conservative critiques of journalism. Shedding new light on popular theories about "how news works" and about "mass" audiences, this book will be useful to students, scholars, and teachers of political communication, journalism studies, media studies, and critical-cultural studies.

Media and communication research is a diverse and stimulating field of inquiry, not only in subject matter but also in purposes and methodologies. Over the past twenty years, and in step with the contemporary shift toward trans-disciplinarity, Media Studies has rapidly developed a very significant body of theory and evidence. Media Studies is here to stay and scholars in the discipline have a vital contribution to make. The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies surveys and evaluates the theories, practices, and future of the field. Editor John Downing and associate editors Denis McQuail, Philip Schlesinger, and Ellen Wartella have brought together a team of international contributors to provide a varied critical analysis of this intensely interesting field of study. The Handbook offers a comprehensive review within five interconnected areas: humanistic and social scientific approaches; global and comparative perspectives; the relation of media to economy and power; media users; and elements in the media mosaic ranging from media ethics to advertising, from popular music to digital technologies, and from Hollywood and Bollywood to alternative media. The contributors to The Handbook are from Australia, Austria, Britain, Canada, France, Guatemala, India, Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, and the United States. Each contributor offers a unique perspective on topics broad in scope. The Handbook is an ideal resource for university media researchers, for faculty developing new courses and revising curricula, and for graduate courses in media studies. It is also a necessary addition to any academic library.

The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media provides an authoritative and comprehensive examination of the diverse forms, practices and philosophies of alternative and community media across the world. The volume offers a multiplicity of perspectives to examine the reasons why alternative and community media arise, how they develop in particular ways and in particular places, and how they can enrich our understanding of the broader media landscape and its place in society. The 50 chapters present a range of theoretical and methodological positions, and arguments to demonstrate the dynamic, challenging and innovative thinking around the subject; locating media theory and practice within the broader concerns of democracy, citizenship, social exclusion, race, class and gender. In addition to research from the UK, the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, the Companion also includes studies from Colombia, Haiti, India, South Korea and Zimbabwe, enabling international comparisons to be made and also allowing for the problematisation of traditional - often Western - approaches to media studies. By considering media practices across a range of cultures and communities, this collection is an ideal companion to the key issues and debates within alternative and community media.