Current Issues in Alternative Media Research

Research in alternative media has burgeoned since the turn of the millennium. The majority of studies has examined the political and social dimensions of alternative media and has focused on the media of social movements. The value of these amateur media projects lies not only in the content they produce, but also in the educational and political empowerment they offer to their participants. Other forms of alternative media, such as blogs and fanzines, present challenges to mainstream journalism; they challenge the exclusive authority and expertise of professional journalists. Recent research has begun to examine the relationship between alternative and mainstream media practices, particularly examining how alternative media offer ways of rebalancing media power and how 'ordinary' people are able to represent their own lives and experiences and concerns in ways that are often ignored or marginalised by the dominant media institutions. However, we need to learn more about specific alternative media practices and how audiences use their content.     

Anti-War Activism: New Media and Protest in the Information Age

This starts out by distinguishing between communication and communication mediums when examining social movement-powered formations of collective identity and collective action. We then focus on communication mediums to examine the different ways that old and new media are utilized in urban social movements under neoliberal capitalism. Based on shifts in the political economy and correspondingly in the contemporary composition of the working class, we focus on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia to argue that contemporary urban social movements and networks utilize a multi-media platform to further class-based politics. The respective use of old or new media depends on important contextual questions, regarding technology access and geographic aspects of movement building work.     

Psychodynamic theory within the politics of social work theory

Abstract

It is argued that social work theory has a politics in which supporters of theoretical perspectives are in discourse. The political position of psychodynamic theory has varied in each of three phases of social work theoretical development: the pre-influence, dominance and alternatives phases. In the dominance phase social work theories usually derived from psychoanalysis, psychodynamic ideas permeated basic social work practices and non-psychodynamic perspectives were influenced by it. In the alternatives phase, these influences continued, psychodynamic theory became a player in a wider discourse, was incorporated into or incorporated other perspectives and continued its dominance in specific settings. However, intensity of criticism of it, non-therapeutic approaches in much of social work, restricted training programmes, poor media of professional communication, the novelty of newer perspectives and poor transfer of new developments in psychodynamic theory have implied an insecure position for psychodynamic theory. But many of these problems are shared by alternative perspectives and its historical strength, strength in related occupations its adaptiveness and inclusiveness and the development of post-qualifying training offer continuing avenues to strengthen its political position within social work theory     

Media Production as Therapy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The rapidly changing communication environment of the digital age has generated needed discussion regarding implications of media technologies for social work practice. Yet scarce research has considered the therapeutic value of media technologies for social work practice. This systematic review explores how media production is used as a therapeutic intervention in human services to identify the therapeutic value and potential challenges of its application in the field. Media Production as Therapy (MPT) affords a range of therapeutic outcomes, including self- and community-awareness, self-reflection and self-correction practices, self-expression and story-sharing, and processing trauma. Challenges confronted through MPT include time and resource constraints, logistical difficulties, issues of authenticity, and dissemination concerns. Despite limited research, this review provides needed guidance for social workers to harness technology for social good, operating in the digital space to implement MPT interventions that afford a range of therapeutic benefits to clients in an increasingly mediated world.     

The contribution of media consumption to civic participation

A national UK survey (N = 1017) examined the association between media consumption and three indicators of civic participation - likelihood of voting, interest in politics, and actions taken in response to a public issue of concern to the respondent. Multiple regression analysis was used to test the variance explained by media use variables after first controlling for demographic, social and political predictors of each indicator of participation. Media use significantly added to explaining variance in civic participation as follows. In accounting for voting, demographic and political/social factors mattered, but so too did some media habits (listening to the radio and engagement with the news). Interest in politics was accounted for by political/social factors and by media use, especially higher news engagement and lower media trust. However, taking action on an issue of concern was accounted for only by political/social factors, with the exception that slightly fewer actions were taken by those who watched more television. These findings provided little support for the media malaise thesis, and instead were interpreted as providing qualified support for the cognitive/motivational theory of news as a means of engaging the public.     

Enjoy Poverty: humanitarianism and the testimonial function of images

The overlap between production of humanitarian images and interventions in contexts of natural and man-made catastrophes is growing on a global scale. An increasingly close relationship exists between image production, news production and humanitarian industry. In this article, we argue that this process is transforming the meaning of the social, political and ethical act of bearing witness. We analyse the epistemic and political implications of visual humanitarian testimony through the documentary film Enjoy Poverty (2008), shot in Congo by the Dutch artist Renzo Martens. Examining some of the key scenes of the film, we undertake an analysis of the visual culture of humanitarianism within which the contemporary production of sensational images of strong emotional impact is inscribed and justified. We maintain that rethinking testimonial debt in light of contemporary visual humanitarianism fundamentally means to acknowledge and explore the hierarchical relationship that visual humanitarianism creates between the witnesses, the victims and the spectators. We conclude by arguing that Enjoy Poverty constitutes an attempt to generate a new visual, discursive and political horizon within which one can prevent the transformation of the testimonial relationship into a relationship of power.     

‘Social media logic’ meets professional norms: Twitter hashtags usage by journalists and politicians

Social media is characterized by a set of principles defined as ‘social media logic’ [van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1, 2–14. doi:10.12924/mac2013.01010002], derived from the theory of ‘media logic’ developed in the era of mass media [Altheide, D. L., & Snow, R. P. (1979). Media logic. London: Sage.]. This article explores how ‘social media logic’ impacts on two interconnected but yet distinct professions, journalism and politics, by analysing one of the key principles of social media logics, namely ‘connectivity’, an advanced strategy of algorithmically connecting users to content and other users in social media [van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1, 2–14. doi:10.12924/mac2013.01010002]. The operationalization of connectedness in this study is the Twitter hashtag, as it is the most common feature for users to connect and relate to within a larger networked discourse [Bruns, A., & Burgess, J. (2015). Twitter hashtags from ad hoc to calculated publics. In N. Rambukkana (Ed.), Hashtag publics: The power and politics of discursive networks (pp. 13–27). New York, NY: Peter Lang.]. The empirical material consists of tweets posted by 10 Norwegian politicians and 10 journalists, selected on their level of activity on Twitter. The tweets are analysed with the emphasis on the frequency and content of the hashtags, and the methodological design is comparative between the journalists and the politicians. A key finding is that there are significant differences between how journalists and politicians use hashtags, but that they both use mass media hashtags to reach outside their follower networks. Consequently, this demonstrates that journalists’ and politicians’ use of social media is closely connected to their professional norms, and that the ‘social media logic’ is still related to the ‘media logic’ of mainstream and broadcast media.     

Digital survivance and Trickster humor: exploring visual and digital Indigenous epistemologies in the #NoDAPL movement

ABSTRACT

The decolonizing turn in the humanities and social sciences calls for scholarship that analyzes social media practices through the lens of Indigenous epistemologies. In this article, we model the ways that Indigenous epistemologies might contribute to theories of social media practices as we explore ways that the digital image can drive identification with and engagement in political acts. The article analyzes social media tropes circulated across various platforms among Indigenous communities and allies in relation to the #NoDAPL movement. We argue that attempting to analyze Native American traditions through Western theory will only work towards colonizing these Indigenous texts. Thus, whereas we employ insights from digital and visual methods of analysis (Highfield, T., & Leaver, T. (2016). Instagrammatics and digital methods: Studying visual social media, from selfies and GIFs to memes and emoji. Communication Research and Practice, 2(1), 47–62), we also highlight the strategic use of humor in the visual materials shared through various social media platforms utilizing the framework of the Trickster. We argue that the visual and digital phenomena we studied might best be understood as a form of digital survivance, drawing upon Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor [(1994). Manifest manners: Postindian warriors of survivance. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press]. term ‘survivance’ as a portmanteau that combines ‘survival’ and ‘resistance’ in its characterization of Indigenous storytelling traditions. Whereas centering the Indigenous figure of the Trickster might suggest that social media has failed to live up to its promises, this epistemological approach also explains the hope that Indigenous communities hold in uniting via social media for what has been and continues to be a long-term battle for sovereignty and for the protection of the earth and all of its beings.     

Extending the local: activist types and forms of social media use in the case of an anti-mining struggle

As political activists increasingly use social media in local protests, scholars must redirect attention from large-scale campaigns to scrutinize the ways in which geographically confined actors use social media to engage in protests. This paper analyses how a 2013 anti-mining campaign in Kallak, Sweden, combined on-site resistance with social media strategies via Facebook pages. The study examines which activist roles and forms of social media use that emerged and aims to explore what larger practical and theoretical implications one can derive from this specific case of place-based struggles. Results show that three typologically distinct activist roles emerged during the protests: local activists, digital movement intellectuals and digital distributors. These different types of actors were involved in four different forms of social media use: mobilization, construction of the physical space, extension of the local and augmentation of local and translocal bonds. Based on our findings, we argue that the coming together of these different activist roles and the different uses of social media added a translocal dimension to the peripheral and physically remote political conflict in Kallak. Media users were able to extend a locally and physically situated protest by linking it to a global contentious issue such as the mining boom and its consequences for indigenous populations.     

Illegal Aliens,Criminals, and Hypersexual Spitfires: Latin@ Youth and Pedagogies of Citizenship in Media Texts

This article aims to broaden the ways we conceptualize citizenship and implement citizenship education in social studies. To do so, the authors explore media texts as a curricular and pedagogical site for teaching lessons about citizenship. Specifically, the authors investigate how media drafts the boundaries of citizenship for Latin@ youth, and influences how young people come to understand who is and who is not perceived as a citizen entitled to rights and freedoms. Media texts, like formal social studies curricula, are powerful and enduring educators that shape how students know the world and imagine their place in it. Therefore, this article addresses how social studies teachers can integrate media texts into the classroom to explore representations of Latin@s and the impact that media has on our citizenship identities and experiences.     

What is Flint? Place,storytelling, and social media narrative reclamation during the Flint water crisis

ABSTRACT

The Flint Water Crisis became a national news story in January of 2016, when major publishers such as The New York Times began covering the story. In the same month, an influx of social media activism occurred in response to the crisis, with citizens developing hashtag campaigns such as #FlintFwd in order to disseminate news and stories from a citizen’s perspective; these campaigns often positioned Flint positively ? as a recovering community ? rather than a city in the middle of a public health crisis, and often addressed not a national public but a local audience. This paper considers Flint-based social media activity to investigate the emergence of place-based activism within the ostensibly global network of social media. In doing so, it identifies three key themes; 1) leveraging social media to forward a critique of deficient journalistic storytelling; 2) using the affective process of storytelling via social media to claim authority over their own material offline existence, and 3) using place-based storytelling to implicate others as witnesses via the global network of social media. These themes coalesce around a distinctly critical logic of connectivity. This logic extends the notion of connectivity articulated by Van Dijck and Poell [2013. Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2–14.] and the strategies of platform activism explored by Tufekci [2017. Twitter and tear gas: The power and fragility of networked protest. New Haven: Yale University Press.] to explain how social media works to expose discrepancies between the public story of the water crisis and material, lived conditions of Flint, rendering visible a discursive identity of Flint thus far unrecognized.     

Making Media for Themselves: Strategic Dilemmas of Prefigurative Work in Independent Media Outlets

This article explores independent youth media outlets, one sector of the broader media democracy movement, to theorize the strategic dilemmas that actors negotiate as they attempt to prefigure the media change that they want to see in the world. The outlets operate as noncommercial spaces for youth to challenge the norms of mainstream media through the collective production of oppositional media. In this millennium, we see the increased presence of these outlets across the country and globally as youth are building nodes of communication through differing digital platforms. The article draws out a case study of one independent media outlet, Youth Media Action, in an urban area in the northeastern part of the United States to trace the dynamics of how these outlets attempt to prefigure or model media change through their structures, practices, and content with a changing cast of participating youth groups. I then analyze the tensions that actors confront as they seek to model an ideal (a more just media system) within a constrained environment (overextended staff and resources). The focus on these prefigurative practices and politics affords a closer view of the ways that these sites seek to build a more inclusive, egalitarian, noncommercial media system with limited resources and educational and political practices that do not always resonate with the participating groups and youth. This research contributes to social movement work that focuses on dilemmas that groups face as they look to themselves to build and model systems of social change.     

A Postmodern Turn for Social Media Research: Theory and Research Directions for Public Relations Scholarship

The public relations literature on social media has focused primarily on how social media platforms can be leveraged to the advantage of organizations for relationship building and so-called dialogue with publics. Yet most research has positioned relationships in social media merely as opportunities for information exchange, perpetuating models of public relations grounded in systems theory that ignore power imbalances. Consequently, this article offers insights from postmodernist theories to first deconstruct existing research and then offer suggestions for future social media scholarship. The article argues that social media scholars have privileged dominant rational models of social engagement. Dissensus and disorder, according to Lyotard, may be as legitimate and more liberatory states of discourse for marginalized publics. Postmodern theories of language games and differential consciousness are also positioned as ways in which social media theory and practice may be advanced. The article thus complicates how relationships are theorized in contemporary scholarship and challenges both scholars and practitioners to rethink approaches to social media practice through a postmodern lens.     

How states tighten control: a field theory perspective on journalism in contemporary Crimea

This article contributes to denationalizing Bourdieu’s field theory by analysing the relationship between a regional news media field, the state and transnational influences. The article seeks to answer the question of how a state can impose limits on the autonomy of the news media field during political transition. Field theory is applied to changes that have taken place in Crimean news media since Russia’s annexation of the peninsula in 2014. Drawing on narrative interviews with journalists who worked in Crimea in 2012–17, expert interviews, and secondary sources, I demonstrate how Crimea’s news media field went from being dominated by varied Ukrainian private news media owners to becoming dominated by the Russian state. I show that states can employ direct measures such as anti‐press violence and ownership appropriation of news media outlets in order to increase concentration of state media ownership. In addition, states can reallocate capital in the news media field, disenfranchising some journalists and outlets while favouring others. The adaptive strategies of individual journalists, who, upon losing capital, can sometimes relocate or leave their jobs, also changes the composition of news media fields. Departing from a common view of social spaces as bounded within nation‐states, I examine how the news media field of Crimea has been shaped by both transnational influences, and by the direct imposition of Russian state power through a reconstitution of national borders.     

Social work education in a time of national crisis in Greece: educating the workforce to combat inequalities

Since 2010, Greece has experienced an unprecedented economic and humanitarian crisis, which continues to have tremendous social impact. Austerity measures and policy cuts have included a dis-investment in social work and social care and more recently the abolition of one of the four national Social Work Departments providing qualifying social work education. In this context, this study addresses the following question: how does pre-qualifying social work education in Greece influence students' ability to manage value tensions in relation to anti-oppressive practice? Using a case study methodology, the research was based in one Social Work Department (subsequently abolished). Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from social work students at the beginning and the end of their professional education (n?=?32) and once from academic staff/placement supervisors (n?=?10). Data were analysed drawing on grounded theory techniques. In this paper only one particular dataset is considered in detail: the attitudes and experiences of final year students. The main findings indicate students' narrow understandings and individualistic approaches towards oppression, reflecting an urgent need to redefine social work education and practice in Greece according to current social justice concerns. Specifically, social work education needs to give greater weight to a structural perspective on the dynamics of oppression. Although focussed on Greece, the paper offers a critical debate of contemporary relevance for social work education in many European nation states.     

Media,migrants and human rights in the cultural history. Dialogue with Lynn Hunt

Lynn Hunt is an American historian and writer; she is Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California in Los Angeles (U.C.L.A.), and before coming to U.C.L.A., she taught at the University of Pennsylvania (1987–1998) and at the University of California, Berkeley (1974–1987). She is known for her studies in European Cultural History, and in 2007 she published the book Inventing Human Rights, where she examines the rise of the human rights in the eighteenth century.

We are specifically interested in her work because it gives us the chance to create a dialogue and disclose the moment we are living in comparing it with the cultural history and the role the media can have during a humanitarian crisis.

Therefore, we ask Lynn Hunt to explain how the exodus of migrants can be interpreted in light of the meta-narrative model, and to make clear what is and what will be the role of the cultural historians in offering us an interpretation of this historical moment. According to what the writer says in Writing History in the Global Era (2014), Hunt also deals with the importance of the relationship between means of communication, development of empathy and the emergence of human rights. For this reason, we asked the researcher, What is the role of the media today in mapping a humanitarian crisis?     

Social conservatism vs social justice: the portrayal of child abuse in the press in Victoria,Australia

This paper explores the role of the media in influencing child protection policies in the Australian state of Victoria. Media coverage of child abuse is seen to have had both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, media campaigns have almost certainly helped to produce more equitable and effective child protection policies and practices. On the other hand, much media coverage (particularly in the tabloid media) has been sensationalist and simplistic. Such coverage arguably has a broader social conservative political agenda, which is to defend traditional institutions and values such as the family, rather than being primarily concerned with identifying necessary reforms to child protection policies and legislation. Attention is drawn here to the local coverage of recent high‐profile child abuse cases and debates within the two daily Melbourne newspapers, The Age and the Herald Sun. Evidence is presented to demonstrate that the tabloid Herald Sun has consistently pursued a broader social conservative agenda based on defending traditional nuclear families from allegedly subversive or deviant groups such as incompetent and/or authoritarian state social workers or, alternatively, individually abusive parents. In contrast, the quality daily The Age has generally eschewed simplistic coverage of individual cases in favour of broader structural reform agendas. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What do we call post-apartheid?

In this paper, the author examines the different uses and meanings of the usual expression “post-apartheid.” It has been used extensively in the social sciences, political discourse and the media since the mid-1980s. But what does it refer to, and has it always meant the same thing over the last 20 years? To answer that question, the author reviews the different ways she has used the notion in her research into workers’ forms of thinking and political subjectivities in South Africa since 1996. She distinguishes between its use as a chronological marker, an academic concept open to various problematics and epistemological decisions and a notion used by interviewees under various acceptations. She concentrates more specifically on the sequential implications of the adverb “post” in her work and argues that there have been political sequences in what she (with others) has named “post-apartheid.” She concludes that she intends to stop using this term in order to concentrate on identifying the current political sequence in South Africa.     

Recipes for Attention: Policy Reforms,Crises, Organizational Characteristics,and the Newspaper Coverage of the LGBT Movement, 1969–2009

Why do some organizations in a movement seeking social change gain extensive national newspaper coverage? To address the question, we innovate in theoretical and empirical ways. First, we elaborate a theoretical argument that builds from the political mediation theory of movement consequences and incorporates the social organization of newspaper practices. This media and political mediation model integrates political and media contexts and organizations' characteristics and actions. With this model, we hypothesize two main routes to coverage: one that includes changes in public policy and involves policy‐engaged, well‐resourced, and inclusive organizations and a second that combines social crises and protest organizations. Second, we appraise these arguments with the first analysis of the national coverage of all organizations in a social movement over its career: 84 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights and AIDS‐related organizations in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal from 1969 to 2010. These analyses go beyond previous research that provides either snapshots of many organizations at one point in time or overtime analyses of aggregated groups of organizations or individual organizations. The results of both historical and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analyses support our media and political mediation model.     

The systems' approach and social work methods

Many social work courses are now using ‘system theory’, or as I prefer to call it, ‘a systems' approach’, in teaching social work method on a unitary basis. Most social work techers recognise that the systems' approach is not enough on its own and that traditional methods have a place in practice. What is not clear is how these methods relate to the systems' approach.

In this article the relationship between the systems' approach and various methods and theories of intervention is explored in a number of different ways. Firstly, there is an examination of the relationship of various client, target and action systems. Secondly. Lippitt's analysis of the ‘diagnostic orientations’ of change agents is discussed and related to strategies aimed at changing the goals and the power structures of target systems. Then certain counselling and casework methods are considered in relation to Lippitt's analysis, leading on to a brief comment on methods of intervention based on systems' theory. Finally, an educational strategy for presenting this approach is discussed.