Mainstream and Alternative Media
October 22, 2008
For this week’s blog post, I was asked to monitor both mainstream and alternative media sources and describe the difference of each. So you might ask yourself, what are mainstream and alternative media sources? Well to tell you the truth, I had no idea either until I looked them up. I happened to out of town on the day these two topics were discussed, but with the magic of the internet I came up with two definitions. First, mainstream media; the large media sources that look at their audience as consumers and finds ways to maximize their profit, instead of just giving the news. Alternative media, on the other hand, focuses on the individual. Although it is less popular, it is more informative and is not trying to make a profit from the work it is doing. So as part of my assignment I looked at two media sources, a mainstream, CNN, and an alternative, Democracy Now! I chose to look at the print media of each media source.
The mainstream media source, CNN, covered many different stories. Most of the stories covered had to do with the election and getting ready for Election Day. Other topics discussed included the economy and job cuts, the war, some entertainment and health news, a wide variety of topics. There seemed to be just on side of each story and not much opinion. The stories purpose was to just get the news across and be more informative. In most of the stories expert interviews were used to add an appeal for authority to for the news the writer was trying convey. The mainstream media source seemed very straight forward and almost boring to me. It was just the news and nothing else.
The alternative media source, Democracy Now!, dealt with complete governmental issues. The print media in this source consisted of many articles regarding the election and it almost followed each candidates every move. A lot of the articles covered were on issues involving Obama and McCain and how each of them was running their campaign in the final weeks. There were even some articles that seemed very personal regarding the election. One in particular was on how an Obama volunteer was harassed while at a rally in Wisconsin. This was more than just news it was a real life event that only alternative media sources would publish. There did not seem to be too much opinion in the articles. The articles were easier to read and definitely would appeal to more people. Again, there were expert interviews that added more substance to the articles and the sources seemed to come from each election campaign or even from the mainstream media. On this site, in particular, these stories could also be read in Spanish.
I learned after comparing these two media sources that, if you want the news, go mainstream, and if you want news that will make sense, go alternative. Both sources, were great sources for information, but each had completely different ways of creating the story. The alternative sources seemed to go a little more in depth into the topics, while the mainstream sources, just seemed to skim the top.
This assignment has opened my eyes to alternative media sources and as I look for news I might now have to take a look at them to understand and get more out of the news and the stories of the world.
