Alternative media, encompassing platforms like press, radio, online channels, and street art, presents a unique viewpoint distinct from mainstream narratives. This vital communication tool gives marginalized groups a voice, offering a platform for diverse perspectives and challenging prevailing narratives. It encourages audience engagement in content production and frequently critiques mainstream news reporting. Alternative media shines a light on critical concerns such as human rights and environmental issues. It serves a key function in social movements, facilitating effective communication of their perspectives, which mainstream channels may misrepresent or overlook. Therefore, it forms a fundamental part of democratic communication and fosters public discours[1].
Médias alternatifs are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media (such as mainstream media ou les médias) in terms of their content, production, or distribution. Sometimes the term independent media is used as a synonym, indicating independence from large media corporations, but generally independent media is used to describe a different meaning around freedom of the press and independence from government control. Alternative media does not refer to a specific format and may be inclusive of print, audio, film/video, online/digital and street art, among others. Some examples include the counter-culture zines of the 1960s, ethnic and indigenous media such as the First People's television network in Canada (later rebranded Aboriginal Peoples Television Network), and more recently online open publishing journalism sites such as Indymedia.
In contrast to mainstream mass media, alternative media tend to be "non-commercial projects that advocate the interests of those excluded from the mainstream", for example, the poor, political and ethnic minorities, labor groups, and LGBT identities. 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.
Alternative media challenge the dominant beliefs and values of a culture and have been described as "counter-hegemonic" by adherents of Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony; however, since the definition of alternative media as merely counter to the mainstream is limiting, some approaches to the study of alternative media also address the question of how and where these media are created, as well as the dynamic relationship between the media and the participants that create and use them.
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