2004 Annual Report - Alternative Media

The dissident press is what is traditionally thought of as the news media on the political left - publications ranging from small local weeklies to larger publications such as The Nation and Mother Jones magazines. They are characterized by being a force for social, cultural and political change and have played critical roles in shaping American culture in such areas as race relations, women's rights and the war in Vietnam.

We did not gather data on these media in 2003 as a group, although we did touch on The Nation in our chapter on print magazines. The dissident press, like ethnic media, is difficult to examine as a group because of its wide geographic spread, lack of large ownership and absence of a large centralized organizing group. In future years we plan to study this group of important outlets.

In many ways, the notion of the dissident press as a liberal alternative to the mainstream press is too narrow, and perhaps outdated. It does not take into account the raft of bloggers and news outlets on the Internet, for one thing. But perhaps more importantly, the dissident press, in the sense that it dissents from the perspective of the mainstream press, now also must include voices on the political right.

Regardless what one calls these outlets, dissident or not, they are political voices primarily concerned with challenging the mainstream.