Citizen Journalism and Alternative Media separate themselves from big businesses and governmental control by independently publishing content that promotes diverting views and perspectives on social issues.
According to Smart Capital Mind - alternative media offers different perspectives on topics than what is presented by a corporation and believed by mainstream audiences.
This is thought necessary when industries are unwilling to give dissenting viewpoints equal time to more traditionally acceptable perspectives on topics that generally concern the public.
Alternative media also serves to diverge from everyday news sources that are accessed by the public. For a real-world example, the likes of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC news channels.
This type of media attempts to shed light on topics or specified details of topics, that mainstream sources may overlook or avoid altogether. This apprehension may stem from the attempt to placate to what industries believe their audience(s) want to hear and will be attracted to.
Here I have provided a Pew Research Center Graph ( 5 Graphs down ) illustrating how a group of respondents would categorize false information as one of the biggest problems on social media.
Alternative media takes the form of newspapers, websites, radio, television, and movies. Even ebooks would fall under this category. It's important to note, that the actual source of where the media comes from, seems to matter less.
What's important, is that the creator is producing content with the intent to offer alternate insight that may be considered "Counter-Cultural" at the time. ( Public perception may change )
The idea of alternative Media has existed for decades. However, it became more prominent in the middle of the 20th century. This era brought along a substantial uproar regarding race, religion, lifestyle, orientation, politics, and social organization.
As you can imagine, alternative media began with printed newspapers and magazines.
In the 1960's however, low-budget movies, independent radio, and television broadcasts were created and became a quick tool to display any diverting voices about what was going on in the world around them.
This may be a stretch, but while researching the different styles of alternative media, I had a bit of an epiphany. I have written in previous blogs about my admiration of The Rolling Stones.
I believe they are relevant to the conversation of alternate media because they are no stranger to intertwining their music with social issues. In fact, their popular 1968 hit Street Fighting Man, shed commentary about antiwar protests in London.
This just goes to show how far back this type of media publishing goes and is a perfect example of taking an issue into your own hands and creating a piece of uncompromised media with an intended message.
Here is an article that goes into a bit more detail if you are interested. ‘Street Fighting Man’: The Story Behind The Stones’ Political Classic
Online personal websites have achieved a top spot in what is to be considered alternative media. Today, you are just one keyword search away from finding just about any stance on any given issue. Beyond a simple definition, the implications allow alternative media to justify its own existence.
For example, being that it's an election year, at the time of writing this. ( February 2024 ) I expect to see a large portion of the internet voicing different stances and opinions regarding how they feel about the outcome.
If someone is furious as to who becomes President - in the perspective of alternative media, and by extension the First Amendment, that person would be well within their rights to criticize the decision on a blog, podcast, or website post.
As peculiar as it may sound, it is an additional high-quality example of an independent source taking a stance: Biden and His Supporters Should Be Honest About His Age.
Civilian Journalism, is the same idea of an independent source providing an uncompromised perspective on social issues. Just based on the definition, this concept is very simply put.
As stated by Brittanica.com - Citizen Journalism is journalism that is conducted by people who are by no means professional, nor have any prior affiliations or incentive to report one way or another. In other words, they have no one to answer to, except their own perspective.
This type of journalism has a variety of implications, both good and bad. On one hand, civilian journalism, like alternative media, makes good use of the First Amendment promise.
Not that I would ever do this, but If I so choose, I could wake up one day, and publish my perspective on how Trump ruined this country during and after his presidency. On the other hand, this type of reporting seems to be a no-strings-attached kind of deal.
Theoretically, this may lead certain onlookers to read popular blogs intended to promote misinformation and sway a voting populace to gravitate toward their personal political stance. civilian journalism ultimately rests in the hands of the integrity of the journalist.
Furthermore, I found a pretty interesting article that I believe coincides with the ideas of both alternative media and civilian journalism. This comes from Mapping American Social Movements.
What this site is discussing is something called the Underground Press. This newspaper served to give voices to marginalized groups in totalitarian societies and help them build stronger communities.
Before the Vietnam War era, the underground newspaper was used to describe the publications of resistance groups in totalitarian societies with radical and countercultural publications.
News media at the time was dominated by uniform television channels and wire services that all fed into the same urban daily newspapers. The underground newspapers, however, reported on subjects with viewpoints that could not be found in any mainstream media.
The underground media attacked the mainstream media for its uncritical coverage of the Vietnam War for its casual racism and sexism in their publishing.
The underground newspaper provided an outlet for certain groups to respond and challenge established narratives presented to the public.
The underground media also stood apart from traditional printing, by including a radical use of graphics such as collages, and color printing. Many groups and individuals published literary magazines, and books of poetry. With its radical and unconventional publishing, the underground press represented itself as a prosecutor to the disruptive social media revolution in the 60s and 70s.
Both Alternative Media and Civilian Journalism present the opportunity to go against the grain and challenge publishers to consider overlooked details of reporting while giving a voice to the voiceless.
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