What are alternative media? (Powerpoint)

A working definition
Proposed by Michael Albert for FAMAS
(Federation of Alternative Media
and Institutions)

What alternative media are NOT
-Just topical or special interest publications
-E.g., BSU alumni newsletter, hunting magazine
-Just liberal or conservative in their politics
-Appealing just to an elite, narrow audience
-Structured in accordance with an to help reinforce society’s defining social relationships
-Controlled by and controlling of other major institutions, particularly corporations
-Focused on maximization of profits
-Just mainstream media with economic problems

What alternative media ARE
-Democratic in internal structure and in their relationship to readers, viewers, etc.
-Seek broad, non-elite audience who want an alternative to some other general news source
-Structured to subvert existing social and/or economic power structure
-See themselves as part of a project to establish new ways of organizing media and social activity
-Interested in more than profits; sees audience not as consumers, but as citizens and constituents

Websites to check out
www.altermedia.org
www.indypress.org
www.zmag.org
www.indymedia.org
www.papertiger.org
www.thirdworldtraveler.com
www.thenation.com
www.mediareform.net
Check out the national conference on media reform June 2005
www.alternet.org

A few MN alternative media
Ojibwe News
Native American Press
Common Ground nspr
Northern Student
Ripsaw (Duluth)
City Pages (Mpls.)
Asian American Press
Lakeland Public TV
MN Women’s Press
High Plains Reader
(Fargo)
Insight (Afr. Amer.)
Various Twin Cities neighborhood nsprs
Minnesota Daily
(U of M paper)
Northern Herald