Alternative Media: a blanket term often used to describe media which focus on issues and perspectives not found in mainstream media, or that are under-represented in mainstream media. Alternative media are not necessarily independent or non-commercial. Includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender issues, immigration, race/ethnicity, radical or progressive political ideologies, activism, labor, etc. Metroline is a good local example.
Commercial Media: Any media with a profit motive (see below). Commercial media exist as for-profit enterprises, and often use advertising to generate revenue. Advertising rates are determined by the size of the audience: the larger the audience, the higher the advertising charge. In this way, commercial media audiences are the product that is sold to advertisers. Local TV affiliates, newspapers, and radio stations above 92 FM on the dial all constitute commercial media.
Corporate Media: media owned by large corporations. Corporations have shareholders and investors that desire maximum financial return on their investments. The term generally implies a media conglomerate like AOL/Time Warner or News Corp, though should also be applied to singular media companies like the New York Times.
Gentrification Media: this is a term (possibly) coined by the Hartford Independent Media Center to describe how the gentrification of cities (namely Hartford) happens literally and literaturely. Glossy publications targeted at a yuppie audience portray urban living as a very white, very money experience; this ignores the reality that the city is racially and economically diverse.
Grassroots: method of organizing from within the community, often volunteer-based. Most independent media centers (IMCs) operate on a grassroots basis. Grassroots organizing is useful because the media is more apt to reflect the community it serves.
Independent Media: generally used to describe non-commercial media, and more specifically, Indymedia. Independent media are not businesses, usually operating as not-for-profit. Many, though not all, independent media refuse advertising from for-profit entities. Independent media includes the Indymedia movement (such as HIMC), college/community radio stations such as WWUH, WESU, WHUS, and WRTC, and a variety of internet media. National Public Radio and public television are sometimes considered independent media, though their ties to state and federal agencies, and their increased corporate funding through underwriting make them less independent than such media as Indymedia.org. See also Public Media.
Indymedia: name given to the independent media movement that began in Seattle 1999. Indymedia emerged as a grassroots, non-commercial, largely web-based way to spread information about the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests which were largely blocked or distorted by mainstream media. Indymedia has evolved into a worldwide movement to counter corporate media consolidation. Hartford Independent Media Center is a part of this movement and is loosely affiliated with the global network.
Invective: Writing that is harshly critical, employing ad hominem attacks, offensive imagery, and desperate expressions of outrage.
Media Consolidation: the buying or merging of existing media outlets to form large, centralized, non-local media conglomerates. Media consolidation has been the trend since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which lifted long standing restrictions for how many media outlets one company could own in a given market. The result has been huge media corporations like Clear Channel Communications, which owns five Hartford radio stations, and Tribune Co., which owns the Hartford Courant, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, and the Advocate chain of weekly so-called “alternative” newspapers. Two great resources for who owns what: FreePress.net and Columbia Journalism Review.
Media Literacy: being knowledgeable about media, being critical of corporate media conglomeration and its effects on the audience and on the quality of information.
Myth of Objectivity: the belief that no media can ever be fully objective, that all media have inherent biases which will help shape the information that is distributed. Such biases could be ideological, or profit-based, and manifest themselves in the editorial pages, but more subtley in the choices of what gets printed and what does not, or where certain stories get printed or broadcast (i.e., “burying” a story). The New York Times admits its own subjectivity: “All the news that’s fit to print.” The myth of objectivity is also revealed in the ways that reporters go about collecting news content. Often reporters at all levels of news (local, national, and international) use standardized news collecting routines that over-rely on traditional news sources, which tend to be official governmental spokespeople (e.g., press secretaries, public relations managers, spokespeople, etc.). The over-reliance on “official” sources results in stories being consistently framed to reflect traditional, status quo assumptions, understandings, and solutions to the issue at hand. While these sources are defined as “objective” by most major news organizations, other sources are framed and understood as biased and deserving balance. Standardized news collecting arose due to the economic pressures that encourage news organizations to reduce the amount of money they spend on making and finding news. Since news must be made daily, consistently relying on traditional sources reduces uncertainty and allows for efficient news collecting, all under the guise of objectivity. Robert Jensen poses the idea that journalists should be less objective.
Objectivity: the state of being free from bias or prejudice in news reporting. Objectivity has been the expectation of many news audiences since the first half of the 20th century. But, prior to that, press was largely and overtly partisan. Many still believe it is even though it’s less obvious than the agenda-driven media of the 19th century and earlier. Many newspapers had specific perspectives such as labor, big business, political ideologies (liberal/conservative/radical/progressive), religion, national origin, suffrage, civil rights, etc. Today, many media activists consider the bias to be that of corporate, commercial imperatives, rather than a political or social philosophy. See also: the myth of objectivity.
Profit Motive: An investment website explains that profit is why most businesses exist. When talking about media, the term “profit motive” implies that the company is focused on turning a profit to the degree that other things, like quality of journalism or accountability, are forgotten.
Public Media:
Samizdat: underground, usually self-published literature often containing political criticism.
State Media: like it sounds, this is when the media is controlled by the government. When the term “state media” is used, it’s typically used in the orthodox sense of the government literally having to approve which news items are released. The term has been used in recent years to refer to how the U.S. media at times simply republishes or broadcasts the government’s version of the news, unquestioningly. Amy Goodman, for one, has pointed to this phenomena.