Alternative Media

Chris Atton is Professor of Media and Culture in the School of Arts and Creative Industries of Edinburgh Napier University.  His research is primarily interested in popular culture that is produced by "ordinary," non-professional writers and editors of fanzines, radical newspapers, independent publishers and social media.  He is particularly interested in how audiences and fan communities make sense of popular culture through their own writing.  He has made special studies of music fanzines, radical political newspapers and the use of the internet for the distribution of "amateur ideas."  His books include Alternative Media (Sage, 2002) and Alternative Journalism (Sage, 2008, with James F. Hamilton).

′Original and intriguing…[alternative media] are very often to be found sparking the earliest stages of the news cycle and of political and cultural movements, as well as fuelling the dynamics of these processes as they develop. Atton makes a convincing case for treating these media with all due seriousness′ - John Downing, University of Texas at Austin

• Approaching Alternative MediaTheory and MethodologyThe Economics of ProductionWhat Use Is a Zine? Identity-Building and Social Signification in Zine CultureAlternative Media and New Social MovementsWriters, Readers and Knowledge in New Social Movement MediaInformation and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in Alternative Media