An Alternative Internet: Radical Media, Politics and Creativity

by Chris Atton

This book explores how the Internet presents radical ways of organising and producing media that offer political and cultural alternatives, both to ways of doing business and to how we understand the world and our place in it. The book is characterised by in-depth case studies. Topics include the media of new social movements and other radical political organisations (including the far right); websites produced by fans of popular culture; and media dedicated to developing a critical, 'public' journalism. It locates these studies in appropriate theoretical and historical contexts, while remaining accessible to a student audience.Major use of the Internet by political groups such as the anti-capitalist and environmental movements, as well as the far right*Radical forms of creativity and the anti-copyright and sampling/file-sharing movements, and their role as cultural critics in a corporate world*The development and maintenance of a global, 'digital public sphere' of protest through such practices as 'hacktivism'*The use of new media technologies to transform existing media forms and practices, such as news media and Internet radio.This is the first book devoted entirely to 'alternative' ways of political organisation and cultural production on the Internet. The author is one of the leading international experts in the study of alternative media, and this book is an authoritative guide to all aspects of these the cultural, the political, the economic and the social. The range of topics covered will make it an attractive text for a wide range of media and cultural studies and computing courses.

Paperback

First published November 19, 2004

About the author

Chris Atton is Professor of Media and Culture in the School of Arts and Creative Industries at Edinburgh Napier University. He is regarded as one of the leading international scholars in the study of alternative media. His books include Alternative Media (Sage, 2002), An Alternative Internet (2004), Alternative Journalism (Sage, 2008) and the Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media (2015). He is a co-founder of the Journal of Alternative and Community Media. He has made special studies of fanzines and the media of new social movements, as well as the cultural value of avant-garde and other ‘difficult’ forms of popular music. His work on music has appeared in Popular Music, the Journal of Popular Music Studies, Popular Music and Society and the European Journal of Cultural Studies.

He received Master's degrees in both Mass Communications (from the University of Leicester) and Latin Studies (from the University of Edinburgh). He went on to work as a librarian and a translator of Latin texts.

Reviews

[Xia Kang · Rating 5 out of 5]

the most inspiring book ever read!!!!!!!!!!