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ALTERNATIVE JOURNALISM: IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Description | Book Name: The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism |
| Abstract | What Stuart Hall (1977) once termed the ‘ideological effect’ of the mass media is now an accepted foundation of critical media studies. Hebdige (1979) summarised this effect as ‘the role the media play in shaping and maintaining consent’ (1979: 156). This dominant ideology is effected through the practices of professionalised journalism: the conventions of news sourcing and representation; the hierarchical and capitalised economy of commercial journalism; the professional, elite basis of journalism as a practice; the professional norm of objectivity; and the passive role of audience as receiver. The present chapter explores journalistic practices that spring from an ideology that presents a direct challenge to the mass media’s ‘dominant discourses about reality . . . the interests of the dominant groups in society’ (Hebdige, 1979: 15). The ideology of alternative journalism embodies a critique of the ideological effect of the mass media through developing practices that challenge the dominant practices of professionalised journalism. Consequently, in its ideal form alternative journalism is produced outside mainstream media institutions and networks. It ‘can include the media of protest groups, dissidents, fringe political organisations, even fans and hobbyists’ (Atton, 2004: 3). It tends to be produced not by professionals, but by amateurs who typically have little or no training or professional qualifications as journalists: they write and report from their position as citizens, as members of communities, as activists or as fans. (Though as we shall see, there are examples of alternative journalism where professional journalists and professional techniques are employed, often in radically different ways from their conventional uses.) The ideological work of alternative journalism is not only concerned with who is able to be a journalist, but also with representing the interests, views and needs of under-represented groups in society. As well as being homes for radical content, projects of alternative journalism also tend to be organised in non-mainstream ways, often non-hierarchically or collectively, andalmost always on a non-commercial basis. They hope to be independent of the market and immune to institutionalisation. Practitioners of alternative journalism also seek to redress what they consider an imbalance of media power in mainstream media, which can result in the marginalisation of certain social and cultural groups and movements. It is this emphasis on media power that lies at the heart of alternative journalism. The term ‘alternative journalism’ functions as a comparative term to indicate that ‘whether indirectly or directly, media power is what is at stake’ (Couldry and Curran, 2003: 7). This perspective is able to accommodate a range of theories that have been put forward to make sense of alternative media production. These include John Downing’s theory of radical media (Downing, 1984; Downing et al., 2001); Clemencia Rodriguez’s ‘citizen’s media’ (2000) and Hackett and Carroll’s (2006) notion of democratic media activism, all of which share a common assumption that alternative media are primarily concerned with radical politics and social empowerment, with what Pippa Norris has called ‘critical citizens’ (Norris, 1999). By contrast, Couldry and Curran (2003: 7) find broader aims in alternative media, aims that ‘may or may not be politically radical or socially empowering’. Alternative journalism, then, becomes both a comparative term and a broader term. Within it we may place not only the journalism of politics and empowerment, but also those of popular culture and the everyday. Alternative journalism may be home to explorations of individual enthusiasm and subcultural identity just as much as it may be home to radical visions of society and the polity. If media power is indeed at stake in its varied principles and practices, we must also ask such questions as: how does it relate to the dominant ideology and practices of journalism? How is it culturally and socially significant? What is the status of this journalism? Should we think of it as a fifth estate (to borrow the title of a long-standing US anarchist newspaper), distinct from the mainstream media in its ideology, practices and audiences? Or should we consider it an adjunct or extension of existing practices, enhancing conventional news reporting, comment and opinion by drawing on the experiences of ‘ordinary people’, presenting their versions of reality in their own, deprofessionalised discourses? This chapter presents an understanding of alternative journalism that proceeds neither from the separatist vision of alternative journalism that remains forever on the outside, marginal and antagonistic, nor from the neutered and incorporated notion that treats citizen journalism as user-generated content to add occasional colour to professional news reports. There are occasions, of course, where user-generated content has proved invaluable to the mainstream media, where amateur photographers have captured images on mobile phones and camcorders in the absence of the professional camera crew (Thurman, 2008). The value of these contributions is inevitably circumscribed by the dominant news values of the mainstream. Such contributions do not present the ‘citizen’ as active participant in democratic discourse; the citizen is merely the amateur advance guard of the camera crew. As soon as the latter are present, the amateur’s work is done. A more nuanced approach, neither separatist nor incorporated, can illuminate the relationship between an alternative model of journalism and the dominant, profes-sional model of journalism. This approach can also inform the continuing debates about the role of professional journalism in society. |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9780203869468-23&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 222 |
| Page Count | 10 |
| Starting Page | 213 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9780203869468-23 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2009-10-20 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: The Routledge Companion To News and Journalism Cultural Studies Audience Mainstream Media Citizen Chapter Presents Dominant Ideology Ideology and Practices Conventional News |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
