A study of alternative media from the Global South/ non-Western perspective: Scrutinizing how “alternativeness” varies in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East

Academic scholarship on alternative media remains Western-centric, presenting the view that such media features counter-hegemonic content and contributes to social movements and active citizenship. This paper synthesizes the work of scholars from the Global South/ non-West for the first time, analyzing top-cited journal articles produced by authors from the regions of Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East to discover, using the inductive approach, how “alternativeness” is conceived of and represented in the non-West. This stands out from research that theorizes alternative media deductively, from the top-down and often through the Western lens, or country-specific research that is highly contextualized. From observations of each region’s political regimes, ownership structures of mainstream media, driving forces behind its alternative media, the types of content it produces, and its overall impact on society, this study identifies where alternative media in different non-Western regions may differ from how it is typically conceived of in the West, and introduces a five-factor framework that accounts for such variations in “alternativeness”, namely relating to (1) the nature of the mainstream media, (2) the nature of the political system, (3) who is producing the alternative media, (4) how the alternative media is produced, and (5) the goal or purpose of the alternative media. Ultimately, this paper offers a unique comparative view of alternative media systems from the non-Western perspective that scrutinizes the concept of “alternativeness” and how it is derived.