"Delving into the meanings, implications, contexts and effects of extreme speech and gated communities in the media landscape, the chapters analyse misleading metaphors and rhetoric via focused case studies to understand how we can overcome the risks and threats stemming from the past decade's defin
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ing communicative phenomena. The book brings together an international team of experts, enabling a broad, multidisciplinary approach that examines hate speech, dislike, polarization and enclave deliberation as cross axes that influence offline and digital conversations." (Publisher description)
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"The Routledge Companion to Alternative and Community Media provides an authoritative and comprehensive examination of the diverse forms, practices and philosophies of alternative and community media across the world. The volume offers a multiplicity of perspectives to examine the reasons why altern
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ative and community media arise, how they develop in particular ways and in particular places, and how they can enrich our understanding of the broader media landscape and its place in society. The 50 chapters present a range of theoretical and methodological positions, and arguments to demonstrate the dynamic, challenging and innovative thinking around the subject; locating media theory and practice within the broader concerns of democracy, citizenship, social exclusion, race, class and gender. In addition to research from the UK, the US, Canada, Europe and Australia, the Companion also includes studies from Colombia, Haiti, India, South Korea and Zimbabwe, enabling international comparisons to be made and also allowing for the problematization of traditional - often Western - approaches to media studies. By considering media practices across a range of cultures and communities, this collection is an ideal companion to the key issues and debates within alternative and community media." (Publisher description)
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"Identifying grassroots or ‘below-the-radar’ organisations, such as community media organisations, is a challenging task that is not always supported sufficiently by methodological literature. The objective of this article is to address this challenge by proposing a structured approach to mappin
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g analysis: (1) driven by an (operational) definition of the social entity; (2) that allows for a population-based mapping process; (3) that uses a particular registration instrument (labelled a Mapping Index Card, or MIC); (4) to process data from multiple sources; and (5) to analyse the information registered in these MICs. By zooming in on the only divided country of Europe – the island of Cyprus – this article then illustrates how to design and conduct a mapping research of community media organisations on a national scale. Other than giving an overview of the community media operating in Cyprus, this mapping exercise aims to provide a methodological guide for mapping civil society and ‘below-the-radar’ organisations in general." (Abstract)
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"Community media studies have often neglected how community media can contribute in areas ridden with conflict to more peaceful ways of cohabitation. This article aims to look in detail at how the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC) has developed conflict resolution strategies to reduce the antagon
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ism in the Cypriot society, an island divided since 1974. Then it looks at the problems and complexities that this organization has to face when trying to realize its remit, caused by the fallacies in the community media model and by the Cypriot context of conflictuality. Despite the difficulties, the CCMC illustrates that community media can play a role in conflict resolution, creating more opportunities for mutual understanding and for the humanization of the other." (Abstract)
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