alternative media alternative media chris attan 'SAGE Publications London Thousand Oaks New Delhi ©ChrisAtton2002 Firstpublished2002 Reprinted2003,2005,2006 Apartfromanyfairdealingforthepurposesofresearchorprivatestudy, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmittedinanyform, orbyanymeans, onlywiththepriorpermission inwritingofthepublishers,orinthecaseofreprographicreproduction,in accordancewiththeterms oflicencesissuedbytheCopyrightLicensing Agency. Inquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethosetermsshouldbe senttothepublishers. SAGEPublicationsLtd 1Oliver'sYard 55CityRoad LondonEC1Y1SP SAGEPublicationsInc 2455TellerRoad ThousandOaks California91320 SAGEPublicationsIndiaPvt.Ltd B-42PanchsheelEnclave POBox4109 NewDelhi110017 BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationdata AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary ISBN-I0 0-7619-6770-2(hbk) ISBN-13 978-0-7619-6770-5(hbk) ISBN-I0 0-7619-6771-0(Pbk) ISBN-13 978-0-7619-6771-2(Pbk) Printedonpaperfromsustainablesources TypesetbySNAMathSetters,Chennai,India PrinteddigitallyandboundinGreatBritainby BiddIesLimited,King'sLynn,Norfolk contents Acknowledgements VIl1 Introduction 1 1 ApproachingAlternative Media: Theory and Methodology 7 Preliminaries 7 Defining 'alternative' and 'radical' 9 Downing's theory ofradical media 19 Beyond the political: attitude versus position in alternative and radical media 23 Towards a model ofalternative and radical media 24 Alternative media as a field ofproduction 29 2 The Economics ofProduction 32 The alternative press in its 'ghetto' 33 Finance 35 Reprographic technologies 38 Circulation 39 Distributive use in the alternative public sphere 42 Anti-copyright 42 Open distribution 44 Alternative fora as methods of distribution 45 The limits and freedom of 'alternative economics' 49 3 What Use is a Zine? Identity-building and Social Signification in Zine Culture 54 Alittle history offanzines 55 Zines and sociality 58 Cases: Bamboo Girl, Cometbus, Pilgrims andMAXIMUMROCKNROLL 61 Zines and communication 67 Zine culture and e-zines 68 vi ALTERNATIVE MEDIA Towards cases: The EtextArchives and Labowitz'sE-zine List 69 E-zine cases 71 4 Alternative Media and New SocialMovements 80 The British new social movement media in the 1990s 80 Approaches to organization and production 88 Do orDie 88 Squall 91 SchNEWS 93 GreenAnarchist 95 Participation and control 98 5 Writers, Readers and Knowledge in New SocialMovementMedia 103 Readers as writers 103 Knowledge production and knowledge producers 105 Conceptualizing alternative news as 'native reporting' 112 Radical populism and language 118 Activists as intellectuals 120 Examples ofknowledge production 121 Coherence and coverage 126 Readers as readers 128 6 Information and CommunicationTechnologies (ICTs) in Alternative Media 133 Anarchist perspectives on the Internet 134 Anarchists' use ofthe Internet 136 Assessing the constraints 138 Progressive librarians and McSpotlight 144 Hybridity and 'purity' 151 Conclusion 153 Bibliography 157 Index 167 illustrations Box 1. Atypology ofalternative and radical media 27 Figure 1. Darnton's communication circuit (after Darnton, 1990) 26 acknowledgemen ts I would like to thank my colleagues in alternative media studies, Jay Hamilton and Nick Couldry, who were generous enoughto read and comment on various draft chapters ofthis book. John Downing read the entire first draft and offered much pertinent criticism: I am in his debt. Their encouragement kept me going at dark moments. Natalie Fenton, Simon Frith, Peter Golding and Tony Harcup provided much welcome enthusiasm, supportand criticism for this project. SharifGemie andJonPurkisatAnarchistStudiestrustedme: hadtheynot, muchofthis work would be undone. Parts ofthe book began life as my PhD thesis: I thank my supervisors David Finkelstein,Alistair McCleery and Desmond Bellfor theirsupportandcriticism, alsomyexaminersGeorgeMcKayand Ian Welsh. Numerous colleagues in the Popular Culture Association and theMediaStudies, Communicationand CulturalStudiesAssociationpro vided much opportunity for discussion ofthe main themes ofthis work. I must also thank those editors, writers and readers who so generously and patiently answered my questions. Lucy Green at Popular Music cheered me up at an important moment. Thanks to Earache Records, Cyclops Records and Champagne Lake Productions for sonic refresh ment in the final stages. Julia Hall, my editor at Sage, placed much faith in me - I hope it is repaid here. As is customary, I end by thanking those who hadto endurethisprojectoutofhours: Kate, DanielandJacob. And Godzilla. An earlier version of Chapter 2 appeared as 'A Re-assessment of the Alternative Press', Media, Culture and Society, 21(1), January 1999, 51-76. Parts of Chapter 6 appeared in earlier forms as parts of 'Are There Alternative Media after CMC?', M/C Reviews, 12 April 2000. <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/reviews/features/politics/altmedia.html> and 'Anarchy on the Internet: Obstacles and Opportunities for Alternative Electronic Publishing', Anarchist Studies, 4(2), October 1996, 115-132. The material on Green Anarchist in Chapters 4 and 5 first appeared as part of 'Green Anarchist: A Case Study in Radical Media', Anarchist Studies, 7(1), March 1999,25-49. introduction I n his fine bookWhy Study the Media? Roger Silverstone (1999: 103) affirms thatalternative media 'have creatednewspacesfor alternative voices that provide the focus both for specific community interests as well as for the contrary and the subversive'. It is all of these - the com munity, the contraryandthe subversive- thatare the subjectofmybook. Silverstone talks ofthe employment ofmass media techniques 'to pursue a critical or alternative agenda, from the margins, as it were, or from the underbelly of social life'. How this is done and what it means to people who do itare similarlymyconcerns. To decidewhatalternative mediaare and how they may be considered alternative are tasks not easily achieved (indeed, alargepartofthisbookwrestleswiththesefundamentals). Indis cussing my work with colleagues and friends I am most often asked two questions. The first is: Do alternative media still exist? For these ques tioners alternative media mean the underground press ofthe 1960s (such as Village Voice and The Rat in the US, Oz and IT in the UK). The ques tion fixes these media historically as counter-cultural emanations- it also considers them as enterprises of the past. If their aims had not been achieved, they had at least been abandoned when their editors, writers and readers moved on to more mature activities (steady jobs, families, mortgages). The simple answer is: Of course they do. Examples abound. Far from disappearing in the early 1970s alternative media have bur geoned. The rise ofthe fanzine as an integral part ofthe punk subculture of the late 1970s was instrumental in generating a second wave of underground-like publications that dealt as much with the politics of liberation, direct action and anarchism as they did with popular music. This takes us to our second question: What are alternative media? For whilsttheundergroundpressofthe 1960s,the punkfanzines ofthe 1970s and the direct-action papers ofthe 1990soffer examplesthatare more or lessculturallyandpoliticallycongruent(despitetheirapparentdifferences at the time, the worst thing you could say about a punk fanzine was that