The printed alternative media in Belgium: journalism or activism?

The line between journalism and other practices which look like journalism is really thin. Alternative media, also called radical media (Downing, 1984), belong to these other practices. Analyzing alternative media gives you a good idea of the link between journalism and power, economic pressures (socio-economic structure) and democratic standards. Indeed these different forms of journalism redesign the socio-economic structure of media companies and bring up counterhegemonic voices (Hackett and Carroll, 2006). Atton (2002) insists on the antibinarism between traditional and radical media. This paper provides an insight into this group of alternative media. The analysis is empirical and based on 10 Belgian printed media: these are French-speaking, generalist and not linked to any political party nor have any connexion to an association. The methodology is divided into three phases: the collection of information (background, description and structure of the media) on the web and from the copies, the semi-directed interviews with the coordinator of each structure (to deepen the material found during the first phase) and an overview of the content (titles and journalists of each article). The research focuses on three characteristics: the socio-economic structure, the profile of contributors and the goal of the media. The socio-economic structure of the media, especially their will to become independent from the advertising and the shareholding, is quite important for them. Many of these structures are non profit associations, and two of them are in a cooperative structure, in order to share the power. Some media accept advertising (with or without conditions) and others totally reject it. The profile of the contributors raises the question of the citizens' media (Rodriguez, 2001) for which we can find two different approaches. The first approach involves professional journalists, paid for their articles, and who work(ed) also for traditional media. The second approach is based on volunteering, and tries to involve more citizens in the process of production of information. The last characteristic is the goals of each media, with the underlying idea of hidden ideology. This enables us to split the initiatives into two categories: on one side the challengers of journalism (how journalism is conceived) and on the other side the promoters of alternative voices and counterhegemonic discourses in regards to the traditional media. Taking these examples into account, there is a clear distinction emerging. On one side, we can find alternatives independent from advertising, composed of non professional journalists (volunteering) willing to provide a strong alternative voice and opposed to the hegemonic discourses of traditional media. On the other side, the alternatives are achieved by professional journalists, who may accept advertising. Their goal is to provide another journalism (deep or slow journalism) without the constraints of traditional media (speed, low-paying jobs, influence of capital, etc.). A final remark, quite important, is to keep the diffusion of these initiatives in mind. This field of research is very interesting in the way they conceive democracy. But the best sold title reaches 7300 copies compared to the best sold traditional media in the French-speaking part of Belgium: 106 000. Having an idea of their influence could be an interesting research. Another research is necessary to understand how these alternative media use communication and collaboration to improve their visibility, using social media and other supports.