Disadvantages Of Alternative Journalism

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Alternative Journalism threatens to disrupt the normative structures that mainstream journalism has created in which many news agencies follow. What can be described as Alternative journalism is anything that provides information that challenges the mainstream flow. It challenges the Mainstream news by hoping to play a balanced and unbiased role within the industry by showing stories which do not get shown within mainstream news. Alternative journalism has also become a voice for groups within society that have become under represented which can vary from indigenous groups to different forms of subcultures. The Alternative can also be more credible sources of information than what we find in the Mainstream news because journalism done by alternative …show more content…

It aims to represent the voices of ordinary people or people that may seem undervalued in the light of the mainstream media. These people are the citizens in whom the news is directed at but the stories that are made and shown may sometimes not resonate with them, instead it is just information that may have no direct effect on them. However, alternative journalism allows the citizen to take journalist practices into their own hands and have a voice and opinion. The access to social media and the internet has brought about a new wave of alternative journalists that have no professional qualifications but look at the world from a view that a majority of the world can understand. Atton mentions that citizens have a loyalty to other citizens (Atton, 2008) which is important to note because it is the biggest motivation for alternative journalism is not profit, but the drive to inform fellow man. People are going to trust news sources that are written by people who are like them or because they are eyewitness accounts or people that have placed themselves in situations that are dangerous, these types of news stories have a more humane …show more content…

But anyone who has any form of camcorder technology including mobile phones can take part in the practice of journalism. It is a practice that more citizens take part in and creates the democratic society that we all ideally look for. This form of journalism focuses more on the relationship between the presenters and how it is received by the audience rather than the theatricals that surround the mainstream news. Mainstream journalism companies have big names that we all know and “trust” which is something a lot of alternative media outlets don’t have. In this sense, Alternative journalism has to work even harder to gain cultural credibility from its audience. They have no reason not to be honest with audiences because that is all they have to be able to gain trust. In “Living in the Sewers of Colombia” the interviews that are conducted are raw footage as this is all filmed in one night and the danger for all the people involved in the documentary is life threatening . It is hard to watch a documentary such as this one and not see it as a credible source of information because of the various situations the reporter places himself in just to get various accounts of how the police and the death squad treat homeless

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