Internet Resources:

Alternative and Independent Content Providers


alternet.org: Alternet is an influential online news magazine focusing on progressive issues and opinions. It describes its aim as “to inspire citizen action and advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, and health care issues. It does employ its own journalists, but much of its content is produced by partners, many of which are major liberal and left-leaning blogs like the Huffington Post.


allafrica.com: Based in Mauritius, with offices in Johannesburg, Dakar, Lagos and Washington, D.C., allAfrica.com is “the largest electronic distributor of African news and information worldwide.” It is a for-profit organization that aims to promote quality journalism and free, independent media in Africa.


cinemapolitica.org: No introduction, of course, is necessary for the vaunted, celebrated, global phenomenon that is our beloved Cinema Politica.


engagemedia.org: Engage Media is less a content provider than a content aggregator and online distributor. Based in Melbourne and largely donation-funded, it bills itself as a “space for critical documentary, fiction, artistic and experimental works that challenge the dominance of the mainstream media” in South East Asia, Australia and the Pacific. It maintains a well-edited, regularly updated library of web video, focusing on anti-globalization campaigns.


pacifica.org: Pacifica Radio is a network of community-based radio stations, funded by listener donations, that provides commercial-free programming in major American markets. Many of its shows, like Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now, are produced independently. Its mission statement describes it as having “educational” purposes.


newsreel.org: California Newsreel is a documentary producer generating content for education and public broadcast. It’s funded by managing the broadcast and distribution rights to its proprietary content, most of which remains in celluloid form. As it approaches its 40th birthday, it claims to be “the oldest non-profit, social issue documentary film center” in the US.


tvac.ca: The Toronto Video Activist Collective is included because its amateurish style and tone illustrates some of the common weaknesses attributable to the online activist media landscape in general. Rhetoric like “with the class war escalating daily, the bias and myopia of ‘the news’ grows clearer and clearer,” a line from the “manifesto,” betrays the bias and narrow scope that characterizes this site. Anti-war activism is its current raison d’être. Examples of sites like this abound.


NGOs and Advocacy Groups


amarc.org: The World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters is an NGO that serves community radio producers around the world by providing policy research, advocacy, and knowledge sharing. Its goal is to “support and contribute to the development of community and participatory radio along the principals of solidarity and international cooperation.” Its “International Secretariat” is headquartered in Montreal.


fair.org: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is an American nongovernmental media watch group that describes itself as a First Amendment defense and advocacy organization. It produces a media criticism magazine, a weekly radio program, and an email newsletter with over 55,000 recipients. Fair is primarily concerned with American network news; it is critical of corporate news in general and Fox News in particular. Asking “what’s wrong with the news,” it answers: “corporate ownership, advertiser influence, telecommunications policy, the PR industry, [and] pressure groups.”


mediaed.org: Founded in 1991 by University of Massachusetts Communication professor and media scholar Sut Jhally, the MEF is now a leading advocacy organization and content producer in the field anti-corporate media criticism. It provides free videos and educational resources promoting social justice in American media and addressing issues from homophobia and sexism in hip hop culture to a perceived lack of content scrutiny in the video game industry. Noam Chomsky, Jeff Cohen, Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Naomi Klein, and Robert W. McChesney are all members of the board of advisors.


ourmedianetwork.org: OURMedia Network is a coalition of 500-or-so researchers, activists, scholars around the world collaborating on communication and information infrastructure, policy, and research. They’re most notable for their annual conferences, which appear to garner considerable attention. It was founded in 2001 following an alternative, community, and citizens' media conference called "Our Media, Not Theirs." It’s a nongovernmental nonprofit.


unesco.org: One of the six UNESCO “Themes” identified on this site is “Communication and Information.” “Media Development” is one of the programs listed under this category, with both “Community Media” and “Public Service Broadcasting” identified as components of the broader media development effort. Programs include “training for media specialists, particularly women journalists, in developing countries; strengthening news agencies, public service broadcasting and community media in developing countries; [and] training in media literacy for users, particularly children and youth.”


Citizen Journalism


citizen.nfb.ca: CITIZENShift is a National Film Board project that provides a media portal offering films, photography, articles, blogs and podcasts “where you can explore social issues.” Though not a citizen journalism program in the strictest sense, it is a “participatory media site,” which means it openly seeks submissions from the public.


orato.com: Orato was an early citizen journalism innovator and still displays an impressive degree of commitment to its founding ethos, namely to “put a human face on the news by showcasing vivid, first person stories from individuals involved in current events.” The content is provided by Orato members—who could be anyone—and ranked according to popularity. The top ranked stories rarely adhere to more traditional journalistic conventions, like responsible sourcing and accountability to the facts, and frequently are not topical or relevant. What they are is fun read and an alternative perspective. Orato is a Canadian, advertising-funded, for-profit site; the editor in chief is Paul Sullivan, a former Globe and Mail bureau editor.


witness.org: WITNESS exemplifies the potential of citizen journalism to be a major global force for social change and human rights. Its goal is to use online video streaming and widely available consumer video-capture technologies to “empower people to transform personal stories of abuse into powerful tools for justice, promoting public engagement and policy change.” It’s a very simple idea: individuals film human rights abuses using anything from a high-end DV camera to a cell phone, then upload their videos to hub.witness.org where they can be viewed around the world or picked up by mainstream media. WITNESS, founded in 1992 by Peter Gabriel following the Rodney King beating, is non-profit and donation-funded.