Alternative media

[2] 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 posted on YouTube in response to a rise in gay teen suicides at the time of its creation.

[5] In his assessment of a variety of definitions for the term, Chris Atton notes repeatedly the importance of alternative media production originating from small-scale, counter-hegemonic groups and individuals.

"[7] As defined by Atton and Hamilton, "Alternative journalism proceeds from dissatisfaction not only with the mainstream coverage of certain issues and topics but also with the epistemology of news.

"[8] Journalistic Practices says "Alternative media not only allow but also facilitate the participation (in its more radical meaning) of its members (or the community) in both the produced content and the content-producing organization.'

Philosopher Jürgen Habermas proposed that a healthy democratic community requires a space where rational debate can take place between engaged citizens.

They rely on video recordings using technology such as handheld camcorders and smartphones to capture the world's attention and viscerally communicate human rights abuses.

Web services such as Tumblr, Imgur, Reddit, Medium, TikTok, and YouTube, among others, allow users to distribute original content to wider audiences, which makes media production more participatory.

Alternative media are also created by participatory journalism as citizens play an active role in collecting, reporting, analyzing, and disseminating news and information.

This form of alternative and activist news-gathering and reporting functions outside of mainstream media institutions, often as a response to the shortcomings of professional journalism.

It engages in journalistic practices but is driven by goals other than profit making, has different ideals, and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy.

By fostering participation, alternative media contribute to the strengthening of a civic attitude and allow citizens to be active in one of the main spheres relevant to daily life and to put their right to communication into practice.

Across the world forms of community, media are used to elevate the needs and discourse of a specific space, typically connected by geographical, cultural, social, or economic similarities.

Spaces created to address minority discourse typically straddle the line of both alternative and activist media, working to provide a resource unavailable through mainstream measures and to shift the universally accepted perspective or understanding of a specific group of people.

The underground press comes out in small quantities, is often illegible, treads on the thin ice of unmentionable subjects, and never carries ads for designer jeans.

They have released several toolkits freely to the global community, including NGO In A Box South Asia, which assists in the setting up the framework of a self-sustaining NGO, Security-In-A-Box,[23] a collection of software to keep data secure and safe for NGOs operating in potentially hostile political climates, and their new short form toolkit 10 Tactics,[24] which "... provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate a cause".

[26] In the US, the first listener-supported independent station, KPFA, began in 1949 in order to provide an avenue for free speech unconstrained by the commercial interests that characterized mainstream radio.

[1] Their content ranges broadly; while some stations' primary aims are explicitly political and radical, others namely seek to broadcast music that they believe to be excluded from mainstream radio.

It is often produced in non-profit organizational contexts, such as video art collectives (e.g. Videotage, Los Angeles Filmmakers' Cooperative) or grassroots social justice organizations (e.g. Line Break, CINEP—Center for Research and Popular Education).

[37] Today, portable, accessible recording technology and the internet allow increasing opportunities for global participation in the production, consumption, and exchange of alternative video content.

Second, the Internet provides an alternative space for mobilization through the cultivation of interpersonal networks, collective action towards social change, and making information much readily accessible.

Typically, among those with deviant, dissident or non-traditional views, Internet platforms allow for the creation of new, alternative communities that can provide a voice for those normally marginalized by the mainstream media.

[39] In the form of graffiti, stencil, mural, and print, street art appropriates or alters public spaces as a means of protest and social commentary.

"[43] Playing an important role in social and cultural movements from Dada and Surrealism to Post-Minimalism, performance art reflects the political environment of the time.

[52] Uploading foreign soap opera episodes and dividing into several pieces to pass YouTube's content limits, can be seen as acts of cultural citizenship similar to the media sharing practices of diverse communities identified by Cunningham and Nguyen (2000).

[53] However, people who have the highest chance of encountering other cultural citizens are those who have the access to various contents, information and platforms; this is commonly referred to as the 'participation gap'.

In association with experimental and innovative modes of production and collaboration, aesthetics in alternative media can be a political tool used to subvert dominant power.

In this case, the use of aesthetics allows alternative media to address otherwise banal content in a manner which re-aligns, re-negotiates, or exposes the politics at work within it.

The détournement (and its successor culture-jamming) of the Situationists, the mimicry of Pop Art, and the reworking of normative narratives in slash fiction are examples of appropriation of mainstream media texts.

Avant-garde movements that have emphasized audience participation include Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Situationism, Pop art, Neo-concretism, and the Theatre of the Oppressed.

[55] By inviting the audience to participate in the creation of media, collaborators look to subvert or critique hierarchical structures (capitalism, the ivory tower) within society by embracing democratic modes of production.