Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

In media and communication studies “alternative media” has been commonly understood by two general characteristics. The first is a tilt toward progressive politics: counter cultural, independent, community-based, activist, explicitly anti-establishment, and thus somewhat at the margins. The second, outside the mainstream mass-media, is to innovate in its technical means of communication. In the last few years, we have seen a different kind of trend, where alternative media also becomes synonymous with extreme right wing voices. At the same time “Alt-Media”, in both its progressive and conservative forms, is moving from margins, taking its place in the mainstream media landscape, even to the extent of threatening the historical dominance of mass media. What do these changes tell us about our times, and in particular, the intrinsic communication affordances of digital technologies? And more broadly, what does this tell us about broader forces of social change, where the trajectory of has history found new media and voices?