CNN, MSNBC and Fox News pundits, and other corporate mainstream news personalities recognize what a powerful and influential force alternative online news, podcasts, digital and social media had in the General Election.
Some in left-leaning media like Jen Psaki and Van Jones outright blame social media for vice president Kamala Harris’ loss; while some in right-wing media saw the election results as a repudiation of mainstream media that’s largely left-leaning, that spent most of its election coverage fearmongering against Trump which ultimately fell on deaf ears. Sean Hannity of Fox News, said mainstream media is “dead.”
But to simply tie the election results to Americans’ media habits is intellectual laziness and dishonesty because there are plethora contributing factors that led to Donald Trump winning and Harris losing. It’s also far from truth that corporate mainstream media is dead, either. Waning? Yes.
What is certain – and welcomed news – has been the gains in popularity of alternative media in online news, digital news, podcasts, live streaming and social media. “Alternative” in the sense that journalists, former mainstream journalists, academics, and people from all walks of life are “microphoning up” to podcast or ramble on with their posts on social media. Regular Americans talking about and engaging in political dialogue online is good for the country, good for freedom and democracy. But the traditional corporate-backed “gatekeepers” of news and punditry not only consider that political talk to be their business (figuratively and literally) but is increasingly threatened by the social media political populist trend.
In a way, political punditry of ordinary citizens sounding off on social media can be viewed as a new form of “intellectual populism.” No longer are corporate-approved and corporate-filtered opinions and framing will dictate to a vast majority of Americans what are acceptable ideas or what Americans should be thinking. No longer do billionaire companies and their media conglomerate chains solely control what you see, read and hear.
It’s safe to say now that we have a legitimate alternative to corporate mainstream news. Polls show that most Americans are getting their news from both traditional corporate mainstream media as well as alternative online and digital media. For the younger generation, online news is the primary source for their news.
Online news is not the same as “Alternative” online news
It’s worth to distinguish here that “alternative online news” is not the same as “online news” (generally speaking) because corporate mainstream media also have a presence in the online news ecosystem. But they’re not “alternative” per say. The online content of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC and all the other three-letter media giants, has the same “corporate” content they pass off on their billionaire-owned cable channels and TV networks.
What they’re doing is Wall Street (big corporate mainstream media) buying up the digital space on Mainstreet, which really should be left for Mainstreet Americans. What these giants should be doing is staying in their own Park Avenue Lane. The CNNs of the world penetrating into the online digital and social media space is gentrifying that space. For now, there’s no consequence of sharing that space with Mo and Minnie, but who knows what kind of business model lies ahead when big money is thrown at big Tech companies. What happens to this space?
There’s already some data suggesting that algorithms are being manipulated through what’s known as shadow blocking to limit content. And that big Tech companies are influenced by advertisers. Could the next step we see is corporate media doing what they’ve done in traditional media — monopolize online media by throwing their big money around?
What does it mean to be online alternative media?
Digital and online podcasts, livestreaming etc. are collectively considered “alternative” because of their means of distribution of news differ from traditional media’s distribution via TV, hard copy newspapers and radio. This is alternative “distribution.”
But equally or arguably more important is the “content” aspect of alternative media, which preceded the “distribution” (online) aspect. In other words, alternative media predates the internet and there were alternative media newspapers and smaller TV productions that were alternative before the digital age.
Alternative media just as it were “before” the digital age is media that is not big corporate owned or government owned. It is media that expresses unconventional ways of looking at society. It challenges perceptions and viewpoints commonly expressed in corporate mainstream media.
For example, “ethnic” media has always been a subset of “alternative” media, along with other subsets that include politically left and politically right media that’s not owned by big corporations. What technology has done is blown wide open all channels of media – defusing and decentralizing mass communication to what we have now.
It’s important to point out this historical tension that existed between corporate and alternative media before the digital age. Why? Because traditional corporate mainstream media have always been at odds with alternative media and categorically generalized it as lesser or fake So, what we see now, corporate media’s criticisms that the online media sphere as being brothels of fake news spreading disinformation is nothing new. The fact is it’s intellectually dishonest to broad stroke millions of internet users into anything, let alone, agents of fake news and disinformation. This is an old strategy by corporate media to delegitimize the competition.
Clearly, fake news is widespread on the internet. But there is also journalistically rigorous alternative online news as well. In fact, there are interview formats where many of the world’s most fascinating and intelligent people will get 1 hour or longer to discuss a topic that is not possible on mainstream media due to time constraints. This is an improvement to the traditional media interview format. As for dishonesty in news, that can also be said of corporate mainstream media as well in their framing, censoring, and at times, inaccurate reporting.
The decentralization and diversification of news in both content and distribution is a step in the right direction. Corporate mainstream media do not corner truth telling. There are many small online media outlets doing excellent reporting and interviewing.
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