Alternative media hold the promise of building public awareness and action against the constraints and limitations of media conglomeration and cutbacks to public broadcasting. But what, exactly, makes alternative media alternative? This path-breaking volume gets to the heart of this question by focusing on the three interconnected dimensions that define alternative media in Canada: structure, participation, and activism. The contributors reveal not only how various kinds of alternative media -- including indigenous, anarchist, ethnic, and feminist media -- are enabled and constrained within Canada’s complex policy environment but also how, in the context of globalization, the Canadian experience parallels media and policy challenges in other nations.

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.

This study of alternative and activist media provides an introduction to alternative media theories, audiences and practices. It brings diverse voices and concepts from outside the commercial media world to the fore, enriching and challenging mass media. Illustrated with historical and current examples, from both a UK and international perspective, it also includes carefully constructed exercises and discussion topics based on case studies and available texts.Topics include the place of alternative media in a mass-media world; a history of alternative and activist media; media participation and consumption by marginalised audiences; the use of pirate and community radio, video and television by community and minority groups; fanzines and other small publishing ventures by individuals; the use of alternative media for explorations in design; the blurring of boundaries between alternative and mass media; and new technology and its possibilities for alternative media.

Bringing together new and classic work by Tony Harcup, this book considers the development of alternative journalism from the 1970s up until today. Bringing theory and practice together, Harcup builds an understanding of alternative media through the use of detailed case studies and surveys. Including opinions of journalists who have worked in both mainstream and alternative media, he considers the motivations, practices and roles of alternative journalism as well as delving into ethical considerations. Moving from the history of alternative journalism, Harcup considers the recent spread of 'citizen journalism' and the use of social media, and asks what the role of alternative journalism is today.

"Spreadable Media" maps fundamental changes taking place in the contemporary media environment, a space where corporations no longer tightly control media distribution. This book challenges some of the prevailing frameworks used to describe contemporary media.

The Open Invitation explores the relationship between prefigurative politics and activist video. Schiwy analyzes activist videos from the 2006 uprising in Oaxaca, the Zapatista’s Other Campaign, as well as collaborative and community video from the Yucatán. Schiwy argues that transnational activist videos and community videos in indigenous languages reveal collaborations and that their political impact cannot be grasped through the concept of the public sphere. Instead, she places these videos in dialogue with recent efforts to understand the political with communality, a mode of governance articulated in indigenous struggles for autonomy, and with cinematic politics of affect.

Independently-produced video, produced outside of mainstream commercial channels, provides a pool of shared imagery about the American past and the American people which is unique. The multiple voices, experiences, and perspectives represented in this diverse work are a rich resource for historical research and teaching. Many professors utilize video as supplementary material in the classroom, but despite the growing use of video in general, independently-produced works are among the least known and therefore least accessible resources. Mediating History is designed to introduce historians to multicultural media as a resource in teaching, and provides and introduction to this work on three levels. First, each title entry includes an annotation and full filmographic information for over 125 selected video titles. Second, there are ten essays that provide background information on the themes and issues raised in the videos and suggestions for their introduction into history teaching. Finally, there is a guide to alternative media resources: journals, organizations, distributors, etc. The multicultural approach of this project is intended to enrich the teaching of history by introducing new evidence, diverse voices, and multiple perspectives that more fully describe complex historical and social realities. The contributors to this guide are: Patricia Aufderheide (American University), Deidre Boyle (The New School for Social Research), Caryl Chin (Independent Curator), Cheryl Chisholm (Filmmaker), Kimberly Everett (Independent Producer), Lilian Jimenez (National Latino Film and Video Festival), Chon Noriega (University of New Mexico), Louise Spain (LaGuardia Community College, CUNY), and Elizabeth Weatherford (National Museum of the American Indidan, Smithsonian Institution).

'News Culture' is an introduction to the forms, practices, institutions and audiences of journalism. It begins with a historical consideration of the rise of 'objective' reporting in newspaper, radio and televisual journalism. It explores the way news is produced, its textual conventions, and its negotiation by the reader, listener or viewer as part of everyday life. New updates for this edition: * an expanded introduction to signal a fresh approach to the subject * a new chapter, between chapters 1 and 2 to examine the new and the public sphere. This will include news on the internet and coverage of the political economy. * Expanded discussion of online news across the text as a whole, especially increasing coverage in chapter 8 * Updates of research, references, examples and illustrations to bring the text up to date. The research included will come from national contexts other than the UK and the US, including Australia, Canada and others from the non-western world. * an attempt to incorporate the specialist topics indicated by the reviewers where possible; these include: radio journalism; citizen journalism; visual culture of journalism; sports reporting and global news culture. * Questions will be introduced within the chapter, as review / discussion questions.