Alternative Media and Social Justice Movements: The Development of a Resistance Performance Paradigm of Audience Analysis

This study examined the performances of social justice activists who were audiences of alternative media—media that are defined by their resistance to social and corporate power structures. Contemporary performance-oriented audience paradigms do not take into account power and ideology, which are integral to the content of alternative media. Through interviews with 27 social justice activists and qualitative analysis of the alternative media content that they used to gain information about social justice and corporations, we explored performances of alternative media audiences to develop a new performance-oriented audience paradigm. With the resulting data, we developed a resistance performance paradigm that accounts for (a) different critical worldviews and interactions of audiences with alternative media production within (b) intertwining “theatres” shaped by alternative media content, (c) which were coordinated by common visions and goals and separated by the differing themes in the alternative media content.