Alternative media in South Africa

During the 1980s there was a host of community and grassroots newspapers that supplied content that ran counter to the prevailing attitudes of the times.

[citation needed] The advocacy journalism of early activist titles was in stark contrast to the complacency of the country's large media houses.

While many of the counterculture titles associated with the apartheid struggle no longer exist, there has been a resurgence of alternative media and the small press after a period of decline, notable because large corporates absorbed many of the so-called "struggle" journalists and mopped up small publishing houses.

[citation needed] However, there are some who criticise what they call a lack of real alternative media in South Africa.

According to the social movements, the importance of these alternative media sites are that they provide a way for 'poor people to speak for themselves'.