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Understanding Alternative Media Understanding Alt Media pb:Understanding Alt Media pb 16/10/07 18:17 Page 1 and Carpentier I S SUE S Cammaerts IN CULTURAL AND MEDIA STUDIES SERIES EDITOR: STUART ALLAN Olga Guedes Bailey, Bart Cammaerts Bailey, and Nico Carpentier Understanding Alternative Media • What are alternative media? • What roles do alternative media play in pluralistic, democratic societies? • What are the similarities and differences between alternative media, community media, civil society media and rhizomatic media? • How do alternative media work in practice? This clear and concise text offers a one-stop guide through the complex political, social and economic debates that surround alternative media and provides a fresh and insightful look at the renewed importance of this form of communication. Combing diverse case studies from countries including the UK, North America and Brazil, the authors propose an original theoretical framework to help understand the subject. Looking at both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, the book argues for the importance of an alternative media and Understanding Alternative Media suggests a political agenda as a way of broadening its scope. Understanding Alternative Media is valuable reading for students in media, journalism and communications studies, researchers, academics, and journalists. Understanding Olga Guedes Bailey is a journalist and Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Cultural Analysis at Nottingham Trent University, UK. Bart Cammaerts is a political scientist and Media Researcher lecturing on media, citizenship, and Alternative democracy at the Media and Communication Department of the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London, UK. Nico Carpentier is a media sociologist working at the Communication Studies Departments of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Media Katholieke Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. Cover illustration: Charlotte Combe Cover design: del norte (Leeds) Ltd I S SUE S IN CULTURAL AND MEDIA STUDIES UNDERSTANDING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA ISSUES in CULTURAL and MEDIA STUDIES Series editor: Stuart Allan Published titles: News Culture, 2nd edition Rethinking Cultural Policy Stuart Allan Jim McGuigan Modernity and Postmodern Culture, 2nd ed. Media, Politics and the Network Society Jim McGuigan Robert Hassan Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities Television and Sexuality Chris Barker Jane Arthurs Ethnic Minorities and the Media Identity and Culture Edited by Simon Cottle Chris Weedon Cinema and Cultural Modernity Media Discourses Gill Branston Donald Matheson Compassion, Morality and the Media Citizens or Consumers Keith Tester Justin Lewis, Sanna Inthorn and Karin Masculinities and Culture Wahl-Jorgensen John Beynon Science, Technology & Culture Cultures of Popular Music David Bell Andy Bennett Museums, Media and Cultural Theory Media, Risk and Science Michelle Henning Stuart Allan Media Talk Violence and the Media Ian Hutchby Cynthia Carter and C. Kay Weaver Moral Panics and the Media Critical Readings: Moral Panics and the Media Chas Critcher Edited by Chas Critcher Cities and Urban Cultures Critical Readings: Violence and the Media Deborah Stevenson Edited by C. Kay Weaver and Cynthia Carter Cultural Citizenship Mediatized Conflict Nick Stevenson Simon Cottle Culture on Display Games Cultures: Computer Games as New Bella Dicks Media Critical Readings: Media and Gender Jon Dovey and Helen Kennedy Edited by Cynthia Carter and Linda Steiner Perspectives on Global Culture Critical Readings: Media and Audiences Ramaswami Harindranath Edited by Virginia Nightingale and Karen Ross Understanding Popular Science Media and Audiences Peter Broks Karen Ross and Virginia Nightingale Understanding Alternative Media Critical Readings: Sport, Culture and the Media Olga Guedes Bailey, Bart Cammaerts and Edited by David Rowe Nico Carpentier Sport, Culture and the Media, 2nd edition Media Technology David Rowe Joost Van Loon UNDERSTANDING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Olga Guedes Bailey Bart Cammaerts Nico Carpentier Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: [email protected] world wide web: www.openup.co.uk and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121–2289, USA First published 2007 Copyright © Olga Bailey, Bart Cammaerts and Nico Carpentier 2008 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN10: 0 335 22210 2 (pb) 0 335 2211 0 (hb) ISBN13: 978 0 335 22210 0 (pb) 978 0 335 22211 7 (hb) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data has been applied for Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Poland by OZGraf S.A. www.polskabook.pl CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii FOREWORD ix INTRODUCTION xi Part I Theorizing Alternative Media 1 || FOUR APPROACHES TO ALTERNATIVE MEDIA 3 2 || AN INTRODUCTORY CASE STUDY – RADIO FAVELA: REPRESENTING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA 35 Part II Case Studies Serving the community 3 || COMMUNITY APPROACHES IN WESTERN RADIO POLICIES 51 4 || DIASPORAS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDIA PRACTICES 63 An alternative to the mainstream 5 || BLOGS IN THE SECOND IRAQI WAR: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CHALLENGING THE MAINSTREAM? 72 6 || ETHNIC-RELIGIOUS GROUPS AND ALTERNATIVE JOURNALISM 84 vi || UNDERSTANDING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Linking alternative media to the civil society 7 || ONLINE PARTICIPATION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE: CIVIL SOCIETY MAILING LISTS AND FORUMS 97 8 || THE BRAZILIAN LANDLESS RURAL WORKERS’ MOVEMENT: IDENTITY, ACTION, AND COMMUNICATION 108 Alternative media as rhizome 9 || TRANSLOCALIZATION, GLOCALIZATION AND THE INTERNET: THE RADIOSWAP PROJECT 122 10 || JAMMING THE POLITICAL: REVERSE-ENGINEERING, HACKING THE DOMINANT CODES 137 CONCLUSION 149 GLOSSARY 158 ACRONYMS 167 FURTHER READING 168 REFERENCES 172 INDEX 191 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The idea of this book started in 2004 when we – Olga, Bart, and Stuart – were in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on our way back to the UK after the IAMCR conference in Porto Alegre, in the South of Brazil. While enjoying the ‘pleasures’ of Brazilian food in Copacabana, we had an inspiring conversation about media issues which would contribute to the current debates in media and cultural studies, particularly regarding media and dem- ocracy in the current context of global politics. Alternative media, we all agreed, were a case in point. From there, the project slowly started to take shape, with Nico later joining the team, which from the beginning had a strong commitment to producing an exciting book. This book is the result of productive and engaging conversations among us, our colleagues who read the manuscript, our editors, the anonymous external reviewers, and interviewees. The responsibility for the content is ours, but their input certainly made this a better text. To all of them our deepest thanks. We are especially grateful to S. Allan for his comments, guidance, and support which were fundamental in enabling us to dare to cross the established theoretical boundaries of what constitutes ‘alternative media’. Due to the transnational nature of this project, some expressions of gratitude are specifically linked to individual authors. Olga is grateful to her colleagues at Nottingham Trent University for their support. She expresses her gratitude to Russell, Flavia, and David, for sharing as dores e as delícias of this experience. Bart would like to express his gratitude to his colleagues at the LSE and, in particu- lar, to Robin, Maggie, and Shani for their continued support and feedback. He also extends his gratitude to his close friends, sisters, mother, and daughter Manon for having to do without him for extended periods. Nico wishes to thank J. Servaes and R. Lie for assisting in the development of the original theoretical model that structured this book, within the framework of a viii || UNDERSTANDING ALTERNATIVE MEDIA UNESCO project. He wants to thank all collaborators of the RadioSwap evaluation, and the two RadioSwap coordinators, D. Demorcy and P. De Jaeger. Finally, his warm thanks also goes to R. Day, O. Deedniks, and S. Van Bauwel. Last, but not least, the authors would like to thank DimensionFM, RadioSwap, MST, Mister Hepburn, the Labour Party, and Jekino Films for granting us permission to use their visual images. SERIES EDITOR’S FOREWORD Prefigured in any sense of the ‘mainstream’ media is some conception of the alternatives that fall outside of typical sorts of definitions. Western ideas about what counts as citizen journalism, for instance, look very different in countries where ordinary people lack basic access to electricity, let alone to a television set or computer. In civil war-torn Liberia, Alfred Sirleaf’s efforts to perform a role akin to the citizen journalist are a case in point. As the managing editor of The Daily Talk, he writes up news and editorials on a chalkboard positioned on the street outside his ‘newsroom’ shed every day, thereby providing passers-by with important insights into what is happening in Monrovia. ‘I like to write the way people talk so they
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