Democratic Communications: Formations, Projects, Possibilities by James F. Hamilton, associate professor of advertising and public relations, examines why establishing a clear difference between mainstream media and alternative media has grown even more difficult within the past 20 years.
With the emergence of open publishing, Web logging and video logging, video-posting Web sites, citizen journalism, creative-commons initiatives and image-focused anti-corporate activism, it has become increasingly difficult to navigate within this emerging media landscape.
The traditional lines between mainstream and alternative and between producers and consumers have been blurred.
This growing inability to adequately map this landscape demands that these lines be reconsidered. New ways must be formed for probing implications of these new media outlets for democratization and global-justice movements.
Democratic Communications reconstitutes the cultural and historical roots of this protean media landscape and assesses its relevance to democratic
communications.
Using a comprehensively argued cultural and historical analysis, the book rethinks long-standing assumptions about alternative media and democratic communications.