The final speaker in this session at the ICA 2024 [4] conference is on the evolution of the concept of ‘alternative news media’ – associated today perhaps with anti-establishment, far-right outlets, but in past research more often seen as progressive or even radical left, providing a platform for marginalised voices. Common to these is perhaps that such media see themselves as a corrective to mainstream, establishment media.

What do we make of such research, then? This project focussed on some 1,300 articles on alternative media from 2004 to 2021, and shows a substantial growth in research on alternative media since the ‘Trump shock’ in 2016; this is far more pronounced amongst Global North and West authors, however. The project further examined these articles through structural topic modelling.

Key topics include a number of technology topics (social media, online, technology of alternative media); topics relating to left- and right-wing alternative media; one topic on non-western alternative media; and several others. These developed differently over time: disinformation rose substantially in the most recent years, and populism and partisanship did so somewhat less as well; empowerment, activism, and non-western topics have declined over time.

Research from Global North and West authors largely follows the global trend. Research from the Global South and East shows a particular decline in its focus on non-western alternative media; this may point to Global South and East authors focussing on western alternative media in order to find their way into western-based journals, which would be problematic and worrying.