A Quick Introduction to Alternative Media

A prime example of alternative media is the “Liberal Viewer” who is a self-proclaimed “political junkie” and you-tube based commentator who centers mostly on the discrepancies in Fox News.   http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberalViewer

In this first video, “Is Fox News Bias Different?”, we showed in class from 5 mins 4 seconds and stoped at 6 mins 19 seconds purely due to time constraints... I highly suggest watching the entire video, but if you can't (for whatever reason :) ) please watch the questions he asks at the end of the video (from 6min 58 seconds to end at 7mins 31 seconds)

 

In our second video, “Leaked Memos Show Fox News Bias Is Different?”, we started at 2 min 0 seconds and went to 2 mins 33 seconds.  We used this video to show that an alternative media source doesn’t necessarily need to be unbiased, they just need to be upfront about the bias that exists.  Although we can obviously see that the “Liberal Viewer” is biased against Fox News, what makes him a reliable source is that he meticulously documents every statement with pop-up sources and lists specific examples that support his argument within his videos.

 

We then went on to discuss our presentation’s question of “how do you straddle the line between being an alternative source and the ability to get your message out?”  Or in other words by traveling outside the mainstream, you trade the “branding” and accessibility for hopefully a more honest approach.  (For example, many mainstream magazines often have their content and story choices forced upon them by the Advertising that economically supports them.)

We then demonstrated the levels of comprise that various feminist publications have made and how that choice affected them.

Starting with “Bettie”, a magazine that refused to compromise, which unfortunately backfired and cause them to shut down.

http://www.bettiemag.com/

Secondly, we discussed the “Feminist Review whose self-proclaimed mission is to write reviews from feminist perspectives to explore the world through an anti-oppression lens.”  This publication traded the need for ads by using the blog format.

 http://www.feministreview.blogspot.com/

Thirdly, in a website called “radar online” that started out filled with women-empowerment articles but caved to economic pressure and now it is indistinguishable from sites such as Perez Hilton.

http://www.radaronline.com/  became closer to http://perezhilton.com/

After this, Mellissa and Jackie went into a detailed analysis of Shameless and Bitch (repectively).