Topical Trends in Alternative Media Research in Journalism Studies

The final speaker in this session at the ICA 2024 conference is on the evolution of the concept of ‘alternative news media’ – associated today perhaps with anti-establishment, far-right outlets, but in past research more often seen as progressive or even radical left, providing a platform for marginalised voices. Common to these is perhaps that such media see themselves as a corrective to mainstream, establishment media.

What do we make of such research, then? This project focussed on some 1,300 articles on alternative media from 2004 to 2021, and shows a substantial growth in research on alternative media since the ‘Trump shock’ in 2016; this is far more pronounced amongst Global North and West authors, however. The project further examined these articles through structural topic modelling.

Key topics include a number of technology topics (social media, online, technology of alternative media); topics relating to left- and right-wing alternative media; one topic on non-western alternative media; and several others. These developed differently over time: disinformation rose substantially in the most recent years, and populism and partisanship did so somewhat less as well; empowerment, activism, and non-western topics have declined over time.

Research from Global North and West authors largely follows the global trend. Research from the Global South and East shows a particular decline in its focus on non-western alternative media; this may point to Global South and East authors focussing on western alternative media in order to find their way into western-based journals, which would be problematic and worrying.