Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Internet, Power and Transgression
- 2 Radical Online Journalism
- 3 Far-right Media on the Internet: Culture, Discourse and Power
- 4 Radical Creativity and Distribution: Sampling, Copyright and P2P
- 5 Alternative Radio and the Internet
- 6 Fan Culture and the Internet
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Conclusion
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The Internet, Power and Transgression
- 2 Radical Online Journalism
- 3 Far-right Media on the Internet: Culture, Discourse and Power
- 4 Radical Creativity and Distribution: Sampling, Copyright and P2P
- 5 Alternative Radio and the Internet
- 6 Fan Culture and the Internet
- Conclusion
- References
- Index
Summary
In their study of online fanzines produced by women, Cresser, Gunn and Balme (2001: 470) state that ezines represent ‘[a] unique medium for communication’. The ezines examined in the previous chapter have shown us that to make such a bold statement is not only dangerously iconoclastic, it is far from accurate. We have seen the powerful historical links that persist between the printed fanzine and its electronic successor (though that is not to say that the latter has usurped the former – there remain large numbers of printed fanzines). Whilst, as we have seen, communication between fans may have been ameliorated through the Internet, it is mistaken to think that the formation of an international taste community was impossible or unsustainable before the Internet. As both the previous chapter and Chapter 4 have shown, international networks of fans have long histories. It is to some extent a matter of degree – the use of the Internet as an occasion for the construction and development of alternative media has multiple outcomes. Alternative media producers might simply seek to replicate the media forms and relationships abiding in print – for example, the fanzine or the radical journalism site as a space for the presentation and discussion of particular forms of knowledge. They might seek to extend those forms and employ the Internet's capacity for ‘interaction’ to accelerate political organising.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Alternative InternetRadical Media, Politics and Creativity, pp. 156 - 160Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2004