The Political Economy of Alternative Media (Politics, Media and Political Communication)

The Political Economy of Alternative Media provides in-depth insights into media practices used by grassroots projects to organize, produce, and distribute the media that support and report on social movements. This book is based on five years of participatory research with global intersectional media activist projects. Mapping out the rich and varied textures of the political economy of media activist projects from small to large and from simple to complex, this book considers structures, funding models, media labor, intersectional power, and media imaginaries, foregrounding the voices of global media activists. It reflects on the changes wrought by shifts to digital media ecologies and economies in the contemporary alternative media space. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics and communication studies interested in the political economy of media, social movements, digital media, alternative media, critical media, citizen media, communication for social change, technopolitics and alternative journalism. It will also appeal to media activists and journalists, providing a roadmap for crucial considerations when developing organizational structures in independent media projects.