This dissertation examines the role progressive college radio played as a site of political engagement for youth in the United States in the 1980s, particularly in its connection to punk culture. Progressive college radio is defined here as a particular type of noncommercial radio broadcast from university radio stations. It inherited from educational radio a commitment to democratic communication and from community radio a commitment to localism and representing underrepresented communities. Progressive college radio continued these missions, but also applied them to music, playing music considered unmarketable by the commercial music industry and thereby representing underrepresented musicians. College radio is popularly remembered as the radio format that helped create commercial alternative rock in the 1980s. This narrative effaces the way the most progressive college stations programmed music hostile to the music industry, especially punk and its related genres, and the way that progressive DJs often felt uncomfortable being part of a farm system for the music industry, something this dissertation investigates. Through discourse analysis of archival materials from four progressive college radio stations, as well as interviews with former DJs, this dissertation reveals how station personnel understood the role of progressive college radio in relation to the music industry, punk culture, the dominant culture of the US in the 1980s, and in their own lives. By investigating how the DJs conceptualized and debated their programming and production practices, this project illustrates how progressive college radio responded to increasing music industry scrutiny and a conservative culture’s increasingly hostile and narrow conceptions of youth. This dissertation also charts the ways progressive college radio DJs mobilized punk’s do-it-yourself (DIY) mode of cultural production, amateur aesthetics, and anti-authoritarianism, to create both a physical and sonic space for self-representation and creative expression. / text

This dissertation explores whether and how alternative media in El Salvador incorporated information communication technologies (ICTs) for social change, and whether incorporating said technologies changed citizen participation not only in the media process itself, but also in a broader discursive sphere as well as civic and political life. Within the context of a digitally divided region, this project employed ethnographic methods—including in-depth interviews, participant-observation, and a content analysis—to interrogate the perceived potential value of ICTs in alternative media for contesting power, contributing to social change, and opening spaces for citizen participation in technology and through technology. This research is merely a beginning stage in learning how digital communication tools influence alternative media practices, and what that means for participation, mobilization and empowerment. This study contributes to burgeoning literature focused on communication for social change and technologies by adding an international focus, and by furthering our understanding of under what circumstances alternative media can (or cannot) employ new technologies in liberating ways, especially in a region where use of and access to these technologies is far from universal. Ultimately this dissertation advances existing literature with two main contributions: extending our understanding of the digital divide to include inequalities of social media and whether it is used in liberating or frivolous ways, and including technology use—whether liberating or not¬—as a fundamental approach to the study of alternative media. / text

In November 2012, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced the implementation of the Local Community Radio Act of 2010, which marks the largest expansion of community radio stations in U.S. history. The act responds to the decade-long community radio movement in which many civilian groups advocated that community radio—an “old-fashioned” yet affordable public medium—still plays a significant role in fostering the expression of diverse voices and citizen participation in this digital era. Despite the successful advocacy effort in the policy-making arena, the real impact of community radio remains a question. Who listens to and participates in community radio? Does the connection between community radio and community exist? This dissertation investigates audience interaction and participation in the U.S. community radio sector, seeking to empirically and theoretically advance audience research in community radio and alternative media in general. Methodologically, this dissertation is based on case studies from two community radio stations KOOP and KPFT in Texas through multiple methods including 5-year ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews with 70 individuals including staff, programmers and listeners, a web-based listener survey with 131 respondents, and a textual analysis of producer-audience communication platforms such as blogs and social networking sites. The results demonstrate the limitations of audience interaction and participation caused by resource constraints and community radio programmers’ tendency to speak with themselves. Therefore, I recommend that community radio broadcasters should consider developing systemic approaches to evaluate and facilitate audience participation, which requires an understanding that the value of community engagement lies beyond audience size or the amount of listener donations. This dissertation concludes that community radio remains relevant in this digital era. This affordable and accessible form of alternative media to some extent bridges a digital divide. The medium also facilitates the development of a genuine relationship between radio programmers and listeners, thus the formation of virtual and real communities. These are the very elements that make meaningful dialogues possible in any communication environment. / text

Despite a rising democratic defict in dominant Canadian media they continue to hold much influce on policy-makers, government officials and citizens. While some scholars argue that recent advancements in communication technology change the dynamics of media production, making it more accessible, others argue that online media reflects what occurs offline. To test which position is correct, this thesis compares dominant and alternative news media websites. Overall, it appears that online media practices are a reflection of offline media. At best, alternative media adopt a hybrid model of production where they chose to selectively incorporate dominant media practices in the aim to meet the goals of alternative media.

Despite the existing fragmentation amongst social change agents serving women on Vancouver's downtown east side, they are seeking fresh and innovative ways to work together to communicate their social change needs and to alleviate social problems facing their clients. Using appreciative inquiry to elicit stories of successful collaborations with alternative media, I collected narratives from seven change agents and then employed narrative analysis to understand what agents considered positive experiences and expressions. I found that successful collaborations are primarily ad hoc and are driven by: the organization's source of funding, the organization's viewpoint towards media, and the trust held towards the media outlet. Enabling factors for successful collaborations with media include: a viewpoint that media coverage is integral to an organization's success, dedicated resources to pursue collaborations with the media, and a high level of respect and admiration for the intended media partner.

Video game journalism has been accused for lack in journalistic legitimacy for decades. The historical relation between video game journalists and video game publishers has always been problematic from an objective point of view, as publishers have the power to govern and dictate journalistic coverage by withdrawing financial funding and review material. This has consequently lead to lack in journalistic legitimacy when it comes to video game coverage. However, as the grass roots media movement gained popularity and attention in the mid 2000s, a new more direct and personal way of coverage became evident. Nowadays, grass roots media producers operate within the same field of practice as traditional journalists and the difference between entertainment and journalism has become harder than ever to distinguish. The aim of this master thesis is to discover if grass roots media is more critical than traditional video game journalism regarding industry coverage. The study combines Communication Power theory, Web 2.0 and Convergence Culture, as well as Alternative Media and Participatory Journalistic theory, to create an interdisciplinary theoretical framework. The theoretical framework also guides our choice in methodology as a grounded theory study, where the aim of analysis is to present or discover a new theory or present propositions grounded in our analysis. To reach this methodological goal, 10 different grass roots media producers were interviewed at 6 different occasions. The interviewees were asked about their opinions regarding grass roots media production, their own contribution, as well how they identified journalistic coverage. It was discovered that the grass roots media producers were not more critical than traditional video game journalists. This was because grass roots media producers operate under the rules of entertainment production. It was discovered that if grass roots media producers break out of the normative rules of entertainment production, they would either loose their autonomous freedom or funding, resulting in a catch-22 situation. Furthermore, it was found that grass roots media producers did not identify themselves as journalists; rather they identified themselves as game critics or reviewers. Thus, a video game journalist is categorised as an individual that report writes or edits video game news as an occupation, with formal journalistic training. However, since neither grass roots media producers nor industry veterans in general have journalistic training, it is still unclear who is a video game journalist. Lastly, we found that grass roots media producers have little possibility to influence traditional video game journalism. The only way to increase the status of journalistic legitimacy is by encouraging journalism itself, to engage in critical media coverage. As there is a public demand for industry coverage, and journalistic legitimacy is grounded on the normative democratic self-descriptions of the profession, video game journalism needs to move beyond entertainment and engage in democratically, constructive and critical coverage.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Geography, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-39).

The 1960s have a special place in the cultural memory of the West Coast of Canada. They have informed its regional identity, the cityscape of Vancouver, and the social infrastructure of the modern state. But lost in the mythos that has surrounded Vancouver’s long sixties is the story of the Georgia Straight. Founded by a group of poets in 1967 to combat a campaign launched by the municipal government to discriminate against the counterculture, it is today, in 2018, the most prosecuted newspaper in Canadian history. Between 1967 and 1972, the municipal and provincial government deliberately took advantage of the legal justice system to censor an outlet for dissent, with the end goal of inhibiting it from publishing. This thesis challenges popular conceptions of the 1960s in British Columbia’s popular memory by demonstrating the extent to which the state deliberately censored freedom of expression by attempting to silence an outlet for dissent, and highlights how the municipal and provincial government infringed on the civil liberties of Vancouver’s counterculture community, in one instance in August 1971, threatening it with outright violence. / Graduate

With emerging content forums blurring the distinctions between journalistic paradigms, this study helps illuminate those which best promote alternative practice. A content analysis of Deepwater Horizon oil spill coverage compared three platforms for online citizen journalism: corporate (CNN iReport), alternative (Indymedia), and independent blogs. News stories were coded for sources, links, author-reader interaction, mobilizing information, tone for the liable parties' ability and intent in handling the disaster, and contestation of official information. Results show that Indymedia was the most alternative in inclusion of mobilizing information, critical tone, contestation of mainstream versions, ratio of alternative links to mainstream, and total usage of alternative sources. iReport engendered the greatest rates of community via interaction, while also averaging the highest ratio of alternative sources. The blogs split on nearly all metrics, as one rated highly in every category and the other near last. This analysis determines which platforms are most likely to cultivate disaster news that stands as alternative to, and not extension of, the mainstream. This study makes a contribution to the theory of alternative media and is the first to compare citizen journalism sites against one another in measuring their adherence to the alternative paradigm, and its examination of CNN's citizen-report model also represents a novel contribution. The findings discussed may help direct citizens as they reach out to online communities in times of disaster.

Alternative media, as another choice for the public besides mainstream media, has been increasingly growing in Taiwan during the era of Web 2.0. In an attempt to report social issues properly, alternative media is trying to break the hegemonic range of mainstream media while being oriented by the public. Civil Media@Taiwan has been established since the year of 2007. During its ten-year history, Civil Media@Taiwan has identified itself as an alternative medium. Although the rise of alternative media has been studied by researchers from different fields, there have been very few studies on alternative media in Taiwan. The aims of this study are first to reveal the principles and practices of alternative media, then to investigate whether Civil Media@Taiwan is alternative media or radical media. The theoretical approaches used in the research include the theories on alternative media, and theories on radical media. Content analysis on the official website of Civil Media@Taiwan and semi-structured interviews of fourteen interviewees are utilized as the methodology. The study has two research questions, which examine whether Civil Media@Taiwan is alternative or radical, and how it serves the public. The journalistic profession and the organization of Civil Media@Taiwan are investigated in order to answer the research questions. The results of the study conclude that Civil Media@Taiwan is partly alternative and partly radical, but combining the characteristics of both kinds of media. Moreover, Civil Media@Taiwan serves the public by challenging the rules of journalism and broadening the hegemonic range from mainstream media.