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- Volume 5, Issue 1, 2020
Journal of Alternative & Community Media - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2020
Volume 5, Issue 1, 2020
- Editorial
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- Articles
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Learning from the history of alternative communication networks
Authors: Félix Tréguer, Dominique Trudel and Mélanie Dulong de RosnayThis article explores the legal, economic and governance challenges to the sustainability of contemporary alternative Community Networks by drawing lessons and parallels from eight historical precedents. Building on academic literature related to alternative and community media, the article lays out an encompassing definition of alternative networks (or ‘alternets’) and develops a multidisciplinary approach to comparative history. After briefly presenting eight case studies (three independent telephone networks of the late nineteenth century; three Free Radios of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; two Community Networks providing Internet access in the 1990s), the article then draws from these case studies to identify key recurring challenges that can inform present-day initiatives, namely, the articulation of local community with global connectivity, the development of political advocacy capacities aimed at influencing the law and technology, the creation of appropriate resources aimed at resisting co-optation, and the need to build collective cohesion and mechanisms to handle disagreements.
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(An/)archival commons: Digital media and contemporary social movements
More LessTaking as its point of departure a dialectical relation between capitalist enclosure of the commons and forces trying to prevent the commons from being enclosed, the archive can be deployed as a useful theoretical concept to identify the key institution at the heart of both commodifying and communing processes. The article first discusses existing literature on primitive accumulation and commons, then moves on to elaborate on the archive and concludes with an overview of contemporary contentious online practices enacted by communities, users and social movements.
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Sustainability and communication practices in grassroots movements in Turkey following Gezi Park Protests: Cases of Dogancilar Park Forum, Macka Park Forum and Validebag Volunteers
Authors: Haluk Mert Bal and Lemi BaruhRecent social movements, as exemplified by the informal organizations formed during and after the Occupy Movement in the United States and Gezi Park Protests in Turkey, are characterized by distrust towards institutional political bodies and hierarchical organizations (Boler et al. 2014). Also, the debate on the relationship between social movements and digital media technologies often highlights the opportunities that these technologies provide for ‘largely unfettered deliberation and coordination of action’ (Castells 2012). Scholars critical towards the concept argue that horizontal grassroots organizations may suffer from problems of continuity and formation of a durable movement (Calhoun 2013). This article aims to investigate the organizational characteristics and media practices of grassroots organizations that were established or mobilized following Gezi Park Protests, a nation-level social protest in Turkey. Drawing on participant observation of three grassroots social movement organizations in Istanbul – Dogancilar Park Forum and Imrahor Garden; Macka Park Forum and Komsu Kapisi Association and Validebag Volunteers – this analysis will aim to contextualize opportunities and obstacles associated with the horizontal structures of such movements. The article will particularly focus on the strategies that these organizations utilize to maintain the sustainability of the respective movements and approaches they employ in media and communication practices at a local level.
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Strategies and (survival) tactics: The case of Syrian oppositional media in Turkey
By Yazan BadranThis article aims to investigate the regulatory, financial and political environment negotiated by oppositional Syrian media operating in exile in Turkey, as well as to identify the main tactics used by them in negotiating between these constraints to ensure their survival in an increasingly difficult environment. As the war in Syria increased in intensity, many oppositional media chose to move their centres of operations into Turkey – forcing them to adapt to a completely foreign regulatory environment, and an unstable political context. Furthermore, and in parallel, their institutional links with the media development sector were being deepened as well. The study draws on in-depth interviews with Syrian media professionals in Turkey, as well as with their interlocutors in international media development organizations. Using Michel de Certeau’s model of strategies and tactics, the study aims at arriving at a better understanding of the complex system of choices made by exilic media organizations to guarantee their survival and achieve their objectives. Within the strategic universes circumscribed by the powerful institutional actors of the Turkish state and the international media development sphere, one can locate the agency of Syrian media actors in their responsive tactical manoeuvrings. The article contends that the tactics employed are also reflective of the identity of these media actors located at the intersection of the alternative, exilic and oppositional.
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Negotiating context as a survival strategy: The case of Mugambo Jwetu FM
More LessKenyan community radio works between international and national media paradigms, while seeking to meet the expectations of its local communities. International funding and training organizations active in the sector focus on enhancing technology for development, freedom of expression, democracy and governance. At the national level, community stations are expected to act as development-oriented media. While development is a value embraced by most stations, freedom of expression is embraced more cautiously, given the political contexts in which they exist. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2016, this article explores the operational choices that community broadcasters make in view of their funding and training partnerships, all the while negotiating their local, social and political contexts in order to survive. It focuses on Mugambo Jwetu FM, a community radio station in Kenya, as a case study.
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The unbearable lightness of being alternative: Idealism–realism and purism–pragmatism in Greek alternative media
Authors: Dimitra L. Milioni and Pantelis VatikiotisThe article explores alternative media sustainability across a wide range of Greek projects. In this regard, it probes into a number of factors related to both the political economy (funding, organization) of these projects and the nature (real/‘imaginary’, broad reach/niche) of the relationship with their communities/audiences. The findings of the research reveal a dynamic and contradictory field regarding alternative media resilience in terms of the dialectical relationship of idealistic/realistic (on the production, organization level) and puristic/pragmatic (on the communication, reach level) features. The article concludes by highlighting the strategies employed by the most successful projects in terms of sustainability in relation to their positioning along the idealism/realism and purism/pragmatism nexus.
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- Book Review
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Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Juliet Fox (2019)
More LessReview of: Community Radio’s Amplification of Communication for Social Change, Juliet Fox (2019)
Palgrave Macmillan, 231 pp.,
ISBN 978-3-03017-315-9, h/bk, €72.79
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