Radical media
Radical media are communication outlets that disperse action-oriented political agendas utilizing existing communication infrastructures and its supportive users. These types of media are differentiated from conventional mass communications through its progressive content, reformist culture, and democratic process of production and distribution.[1] Advocates support its alternative and oppositional view of mass media, arguing that conventional outlets are politically biased through their production and distribution.[2] However, there are some critics that exist in terms of validating the authenticity of the content, its political ideology, long-term perishability, and the social actions led by the media.[3]
The term "radical media" was introduced by
Prefigurative media
One way of investigating radical alternative media is through ‘active citizenship.’ Downing argues that its collective ownership, goals, and participation empower the media's political stance. While mass media lessens wider participation due to costly production, radical media provides a more democratic means of two-way communication.[1] Rodriguez’ phrase—“citizens’ media” further explains the development of empowered citizens through self-motivated participation. In her model, like Indymedia, collective participation through the reconstruction of media-ecology empowers “citizenship” and the community.[5] In this discourse, political cognition occurs naturally through self-education.
This non-hierarchical and self-reliant development of political consciousness exemplifies its
However, neutral democratic mediation is arguably impossible: When examining the political significance, Lievrouw explores collisions between ‘
To address these contrasting arguments it is crucial to examine how these media develop ideologically and circulate. Radical alternative media manifests by
Modes
Participatory radio
Participatory community radio has been employed by radical media groups for easier access and participation by the wider public and to broadcast their alternative voices in one of the most traditional mass media. Similar to community access television, this mode of media serves geographically oriented communities and their localized interests. However, radio often attracts smaller or newer radical media groups than television, as the entrance barrier is a lot lower. Accessibility of the Internet also allows them to set up their broadcast more easily and broadens locality by serving a more global audience.
Community access television
Television as a means of communication has a significant role in effectively disseminating messages to a wide audiences. While many television broadcasts are privately owned and operated, governments around the world have legislated to foster democratized public-access television for non-commercial, alternative, and community oriented content productions.
- Public access television
- Dublin Community Television
- Cork Community TV
- Community television
- Community Television Interactive
Online media
With the diffusion of Internet access and affordable technologies, radical media has grown rapidly in the past decade. The democratic and instantaneous nature of the Internet, particularly Web 2.0, encouraged denaturalization of the conventional media ecology that used to be driven by media conglomerates, while allowing independent media producers to connect with the public as widely as their contestants.
The Internet allows for much faster and wider communication between media producers and their audience. The nature of this mode urges the appearance of an alternative and radical media ecology that reforms previously monopolized public media. This politically “pre-figurative” and action oriented participatory media activity on the Internet is evident in the revolutionary wave of civil riots in the Arab Spring. During the protests, social media was effectively used to communicate, organize, and stay connected with one another to stand against government repressions.
Online media also works as a great advantage to radical media groups for their financial, organizational, and community sustainability as it allows for broader access to lobbyists, members, and individuals.
Other cultural modes
Radical media is, however, not limited in technological means of communication. Downing argues that “the full spectrum of radical media in modern cultures includes a huge gamut of activities, from street theatre and murals to dance and song.” While audiences in conventional modes of media are perhaps more personalized, or domesticated, radical media often take form in cultural activisms in a public sphere, fostering a more active and independent audience.[7]
Graphics and visual rhetoric
Radical media contents rely largely on graphic design and artistic visual communication mechanisms that were used in 1960s underground publications, like,
The political agenda that the media hold is often seen to be rooted in the early 20th century anarchistic political art movement, Dadaism, which rejects logical reasoning, forces irrationality and intuition.[8] While the early social movements focused on anti-war politics, the use of Dadaism in radical media is extended in order to critically illustrate opposing ideas of corporatism, institutionalism, and regulations.[9] To criticize the mainstream culture and politics, radical media employs situationist detournement that remixes and alters the existing mainstream media contents such as political campaign, commercial entertainment, and popular culture.
Criticism
While this idealized view may interpret radical media as sole utopian liberators, a bottom-up reversed hierarchy exists which excludes some—reflective to conventional media.[10] In addition, dependency on existing power structures is inevitable, as the technological production (i.e. hosting servers) is “within the walls of mainstreams” through hosting servers and when reaching out to wider audiences.[11] Further, radical media mainly take place in wealthy regions as the access is granted through possession of sudden info-communication technologies which are ‘taken-for-granted.’[12] Likewise, the physicality of facilitating extensive reciprocal communication and the limitation of accessing institutional information due to political stance can be other obstacles to radical media.
“Perishability”, on the other hand, is a persistent issue raised by both proponents and dissenters.[2] “Cultural contexts and meanings” change rapidly, accommodating the democratic needs and movement the public is demanding. Although the Internet has significantly contributed, independence of “idea circulation” is not guaranteed, as it lacks “reliable” sources of funding and technologies.[2]
Silverstone underlines the need to “understand how meanings emerge”[This quote needs a citation] in media and their interference through mediation. Along with the problems mentioned above, we tend to overlook the contextual reliability issues when focusing on its political significance.
Downing argues that radical media are politically “prefigurative,” openly displaying ideologies in a “populist manner” as an “activist tool.”[1][2] Thus, reliability is compromised by a subjective interpretation of ‘ordinary.’ Atton and Couldry explore the matter in comparison to its counterpart. While mass media establishes symbolic powers based on professionalism and its receptive-spectatorship, radical alternative media's reliability comes from audience's active engagement, ‘participatory-editorship,’ where audiences take part in shaping the story through interaction with the authors.[10]
See also
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Radical media channels
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Related academics
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Reference List
- ^ ISBN 0803956991.
- ^ ISBN 978-0745641843.
- ^ ISBN 0761967710.
- ^ Medak, Tom. "The Idea of Radical Media :: Peović Vuković & Pasquinelli". YouTube. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
- ISBN 978-0816665846.
- ^ Klein, Joe. "The Perils of the Permanent Campaign". Times Magazine. Retrieved 13 February 2014.
- ISBN 9780253058003.
- ^ ISBN 978-0226424354.
- ^ Holmes, Brian; Sholette, Gregory (September 2005). "Civil Disobedience as Art Art as Civil Disobedience: A Conversation Between Brian Holmes and Gregory Sholette". Art Papers Magazine. 29 (5): 28.
- ^ ISBN 9781412947039.)
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- ISBN 0742523845.
External links
- The VideoVoice Collective does research and evaluation on participatory video.
- TNKRTV
- Media Democracy Day
- Media Democracy Project
- Center for Media and Democracy
- Demosphere Project – The wiki & global project to develop a community based media framework using interactive software. (Wikinews article)
- Freedom of Expression, UNESCO