Alternative Media

by Chris Atton

• ISBN13: 9780761967712
• ISBN10: 0761967710
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-19
• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd

Summary

What are "alternative media"? Are they the same as underground, radical or oppositional media? In this book, Chris Atton offers a fresh introduction to alternative media: one which is not limited to 'radical' media, but can also account for newer cultural forms such as zines, fanzines, and personal websites. Alternative Media: Examines how and why people produce and use alternative media - to make meaning, to interpret, and to change the world in which they live Encompasses a wide range of alternative media and draws on examples from both the United States and United Kingdom Locates contemporary alternative media in their cultural, historical and political contexts Alternative Media provides a timely corrective to media theorizing which focuses almost exclusively on the output of the media conglomerates. As such it will be an essential purchase for all students and researchers with an interest in the true nature of the contemporary media environment.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
Introduction	1	(6)
Approaching Alternative Media: Theory and Methodology	7	(25)
Preliminaries	7	(2)
Defining `alternative' and `radical'	9	(10)
Downing's theory of radical media	19	(4)
Beyond the political: attitude versus position in alternative and radical media	23	(1)
Towards a model of alternative and radical media	24	(5)
Alternative media as a field of production	29	(3)
The Economics of Production	32	(22)
The alternative press in its `ghetto'	33	(2)
Finance	35	(3)
Reprographic technologies	38	(1)
Circulation	39	(3)
Distributive use in the alternative public sphere	42	(7)
Anti-copyright	42	(2)
Open distribution	44	(1)
Alternative fora as methods of distribution	45	(4)
The limits and freedom of `alternative economics'	49	(5)
What Use is a Zine? Identity-building and Social Signification in Zine Culture	54	(26)
A little history of fanzines	55	(3)
Zines and sociality	58	(3)
Cases: Bamboo Girl, Cometbus, Pilgrims and Maximumrocknroll	61	(6)
Zines and communication	67	(1)
Zine culture and e-zines	68	(1)
Towards cases: The Etext Archives and Labowitz's E-zine List	69	(2)
E-zine cases	71	(9)
Alternative Media and New Social Movements	80	(23)
The British new social movement media in the 1990s	80	(8)
Approaches to organization and production	88	(10)
Do or Die	88	(3)
Squall	91	(2)
SchNEWS	93	(2)
Green Anarchist	95	(3)
Participation and control	98	(5)
Writers, Readers and Knowledge in New Social Movement Media	103	(30)
Readers as writers	103	(2)
Knowledge production and knowledge producers	105	(7)
Conceptualizing alternative news as `native reporting'	112	(6)
Radical populism and language	118	(2)
Activists as intellectuals	120	(1)
Examples of knowledge production	121	(5)
Coherence and coverage	126	(2)
Readers as readers	128	(5)
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Alternative Media	133	(20)
Anarchist perspectives on the Internet	134	(2)
Anarchists' use of the Internet	136	(2)
Assessing the constraints	138	(6)
Progressive librarians and McSpotlight	144	(7)
Hybridity and `purity'	151	(2)
Conclusion	153	(4)
Bibliography	157	(10)
Index	167