Radical media

These types of media are differentiated from conventional mass communications through its progressive content, reformist culture, and democratic process of production and distribution.

[1] Advocates support its alternative and oppositional view of mass media, arguing that conventional outlets are politically biased through their production and distribution.

[2] However, there are some critics that exist in terms of validating the authenticity of the content, its political ideology, long-term perishability, and the social actions led by the media.

Downing describes Radical Media as being "generally small-scale and in many different forms, that express an alternative vision to hegemonic policies, and perspectives.

This non-hierarchical and self-reliant development of political consciousness exemplifies its anarchistic values, which in turn frees collective creation and “rebellious expression” leading to a more democratic means of communication when compared with mass media.

However, neutral democratic mediation is arguably impossible: When examining the political significance, Lievrouw explores collisions between ‘Collaborative Behavioral’ theory viewing popular-driven social movements as “irrational and contagious behaviour,” and the ‘Resource Mobilization’ theory describing radical alternative media as socially rational and “communal goal driven.

This politically “pre-figurative” and action oriented participatory media activity on the Internet is evident in the revolutionary wave of civil riots in the Arab Spring.

[7] Radical media contents rely largely on graphic design and artistic visual communication mechanisms that were used in 1960s underground publications, like, The Whole Earth Catalog, Black Panther Party Paper, and Oz.

[8] While the early social movements focused on anti-war politics, the use of Dadaism in radical media is extended in order to critically illustrate opposing ideas of corporatism, institutionalism, and regulations.

Although the Internet has significantly contributed, independence of “idea circulation” is not guaranteed, as it lacks “reliable” sources of funding and technologies.

Downing argues that radical media are politically “prefigurative,” openly displaying ideologies in a “populist manner” as an “activist tool.”[1][2] Thus, reliability is compromised by a subjective interpretation of ‘ordinary.’ Atton and Couldry explore the matter in comparison to its counterpart.