Journal of Alternative & Community Media - Volume 9, Issue 2, 2024

This article discusses the intersections between authorial and collaborative work in the scope of ethnographic documentary departing from three case studies: two research projects and one citizen collective of participatory media. All case studies were developed in Porto, Portugal, between 2013 and 2020, focusing on the city’s invisibilities and everyday experiences, searching for alternative narratives to the mainstream media when portraying its people and places. This article aims to reflect on how authorial documentary work, followed by self-criticism and self-reflection, can be incorporated into participatory media frameworks in productive ways. The challenges faced by the three cases are intrinsically related and have influenced each other throughout this period, addressing issues related to the representational crisis; the legitimation of subjectivity and the exploration of different styles within documentary; as well as the relationships between the filmmaker, the camera, the subject/character portrayed and the audience. These themes are explored through a series of first-person field reports and the study of authors and directors in the field of documentary filmmaking.

Journalism scholarship generally agrees that community-run hyperlocal media has emerged as an important alternative democratic institution. Rosen further argues such media is evolving from pre-digital media’s inherent commercial fallibilities into a somewhat utopian democratic institution. However, how professional legacy journalism can contribute to this evolution, from a practitioner’s personal perspective, has not been explored. This article applies a self-reflective methodology to the researcher-legacy practitioner’s lived experience while working in a community-run hyperlocal media context. Through this process, the researcher analyses the evolution of a legacy world-view while contributing to a Melbourne inner west hyperlocal news outlet as local government reporter over a twelve-month period. Through such an analysis, this article reveals a hybrid legacy/communal framework that may help progress hyperlocal media’s evolution towards fulfilling its democratic destiny.

This article interrogates the phenomenon of citizen journalism in Zimbabwean community newspapers’ production processes. It questions the distinction between citizen journalism and professional journalism and calls for a rethink of ‘citizen journalism’ in the Zimbabwean context. Data were gathered through participant observation and interviews with editors, proprietors, citizen journalists and professional journalists. The data were analysed thematically. The findings show that financial challenges and shortages of human resources drive community newspapers to engage citizen journalists as sources of cheap labour for newsgathering and for increasing reach, readership and to cut costs. Citizen journalists are also engaged to lure donors, helping to paint an altruistic image of a community newspaper providing space for ordinary citizens’ voices. The findings also show that the boundary between citizen and professional journalists is increasingly being eroded. This trend is a result of continuous training workshops and refresher courses on news writing and ethics, demands by some citizen journalists to be treated as professionals and acquisition of formal journalism education. The acquisition of formal journalism education enables citizen journalists to breach the boundary between citizen journalism (the out-group) and professional journalism (the in-group). This boundary erosion gives them access to some of the (material) benefits that come with belonging to the ‘in-group’ comprised of professional journalists.

This study is aimed to ascertain the role community media plays in the dissemination of reliable health information for rural community dwellers. By sampling three community radio stations in rural Ghana, the study presents a new perspective on how health dis/misinformation can be debunked through participatory programming and Indigenous language broadcasting on small community-owned mass media systems. Our study was influenced by the concept of informative fictions. We collected data using in-depth semi-structured interviews and a qualitative radio programme analysis of the health programmes of the participating community radio stations. Our study found that commercial media, herbal medicine practitioners and religious leaders play key roles in the spread of health dis/misinformation in rural Ghana. It was also found that, community radio presents an opportunity for local community health workers, such as medical doctors and district health promotion officers, to be involved in producing and broadcasting reliable health information to the members of their communities. The study concludes that whereas trust in religious leaders and herbal medicine practitioners promotes the spread of health dis/misinformation, programme producers and health workers who participate in health programme production in community radio stations can also capitalize on the trust of their community members to debunk health disinformation.

In this article, I examine how one of the most visible neo-fascist social movements in Italy (CasaPound Italia, CPI) represents women and women’s issues on its own ‘alternative media’. Through this analysis, I explore key elements of the communication strategies of this organization, as well as its discourse regarding women. The ideological construction of the role of women in extreme right organizations is central to understanding their broader world-view and, I argue, offers a critical lens for analysing their media. I draw from critical discourse studies to explore a variety of media and communicative texts, including CPI’s policy documents, their introductory pamphlet, selected flyers (online and distributed during street events) and social media posts. The findings highlight the contradictions this movement faces in conceptualizing women’s roles in society. The article concludes with reflections on the challenges of conducting research with extreme right activists.