Alternative Media - Audiences

Audiences

Although most of the attention to alternative media has focused on the politics of production and categorization of different kinds of media, there has been growing interest in the audiences of alternative media. Much of this interest originally stemmed from Chris Atton's description of the blurred line between audience and producer, which stood as a tactic for production in the "ghetto sphere." Essentially, media resources have become monopolized by corporate conglomerates, which leaves the public sphere in a permanent "ghetto" condition. In order to overcome such problems, Atton noted that producers of alternative media can rely on the audience to generate content, which comes at little or no cost. Although Atton's description of the audience in this context was a discussion about production, it did shift more attention to the people who read and use alternative media. In 2007, Jennifer Rauch claimed that the interpretive strategies utilized by the audience can determine if a text is alternative or not. In 2009, Michael Boyle and Mike Schmierbach demonstrated how audiences of alternative media are more likely to be more frequently engaged in protest actions than audiences of mainstream news media. Later, Joshua Atkinson explored the performances of alternative media audiences, and how the use of alternative media shaped those performances. Essentially, Atkinson claims that the nature of the audiences use of alternative media (participatory v. passive), as well as their worldview, often shape the performances of resistance against dominant power structures in society.