Alternative Media and Online Activism

Chapter 1 theorizes the Internet as an alternative media and presents online activism as political communication. This chapter first discusses alternative media, the platforms and technological settings of online activism, and provides a historical overview of the development of alternative media in China. The Internet has become the most important alternative media in China today, and online activism takes many forms. This chapter then discusses China's online activism by looking at its major themes, researches and characteristics. It further categorizes China's online activism into three major modes: culture jamming, citizen journalism and mediated mobilization.

Understanding alternative media

Alternative media — also known as "radical media" (Downing et al. 2001), "citizens' media" (Rodriguez 2011), "tactical media" (Garcia and Lovink 1997), "activist media" (Waltz 2005) or "autonomous media" (Langlois and Dubois 2005) — play an important role in "media production that challenges, at least implicitly, actual concentrations of media power, whatever form those concentrations may take in different locations" (Couldry and Curran 2003: 7). They "[open] up cracks in the mass-media monolith" (Waltz 2005 viii) and can act as "unofficial opposition to mainstream media" (Kidd 1999: 113).

Alternative media counteract the concentration of media power by challenging the dominant forms of media production, structure, content, distribution and reception (Fuchs 2011: 298). In terms of media production, alternative media provide affordable platforms for people to participate in symbolic production. The passive audiences of the past have become proactive consumers, or "prosumers" (Toffler 1980), and challenge dominant symbolic production, which is controlled by power, money and knowledge. In terms of media structure, alternative media are usually generated by grassroots organizations instead of hierarchical corporations. They are largely non-commercial and non-profit media, financed by donations, public funding or private resources, and thus operate relatively free from corporate and government influence (Fuchs 2010: 179). In terms of content, alternative media usually provide standpoints which oppose mainstream media. The voices of the minority and marginalized groups — which are likely to be excluded, oppressed or misrepresented in mainstream media — come to the fore in alternative media. In terms of distribution, information from alternative media can be accessed in an open way and at no cost to the consumer, and thus adopts revised notions concerning intellectual property, such as "anti-copyright" (Atton 1999). At the level of reception, alternative media privilege involved audiences over the merely informed (Lievrouw 1994). They encourage audiences to reflect critically upon the content of mainstream media and