Alternative Media Logics: Intermedial Perspectives on Transformative Media Practices

In recent years, the study of alternative media has gained renewed urgency. As digital media platforms evolve, so too do the practices, strategies, and aesthetics of actors positioning themselves as alternatives to mainstream journalism and mass media communication. This thematic issue of Media and Communication seeks to revisit and expand the concept of media logic by asking whether there is such a thing as an alternative media logic and how this might be understood through an intermedial lens that moves beyond the binary oppositions to explore the dynamic interactions between established media logics, technical affordances, and audience expectations.

We invite contributions that explore how alternative media actors develop distinct logics of production, dissemination, and reception—logics that emerge not only in opposition to mainstream institutions but also as performative and hybrid engagements with the broader media environment. Alternative media adopt a broad variety of communicative genres: From memes and video essays to podcasts and livestreams, alternative media increasingly operate across platforms and modalities, blending aesthetic forms and communicative strategies in ways that merit closer scholarly attention.

By foregrounding intermediality, we encourage submissions that investigate how alternative media cross, blur, and reconfigure the boundaries between different media types and technologies and distinguish alternative uses of the communicative networks without ignoring fundamental similarities.  

We welcome theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions that address topics including (but not limited to):

• Theoretical reflections on “alternative media logic”;
• Intermedial practices in alternative journalism and activism;
• Aesthetic intermedial and multimodal strategies in alternative media (e.g., video, memes, audio);
• Platformization and algorithmic logics in alternative media;
• Counter-discourse, credibility, and audience engagement;
• Transmedia storytelling in alternative media;
• Intersections of alternative media with populism, protests, and social movements;
• Comparative studies across national or regional media contexts;
• Methodologies for studying intermediality and hybridity in media practices.

Authors interested in submitting a paper for this issue are asked to consult the journal's instructions for authors and submit their abstracts (maximum of 250 words, with a tentative title) through the abstracts system (here). When submitting their abstracts, authors are also asked to confirm that they are aware that Media and Communication is an open access journal with a publishing fee if the article is accepted for publication after peer-review (corresponding authors affiliated with our institutional members do not incur this fee).

Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.