Alternative Media Global Project Wiki

The Alternative Media Global Project (AMGP) offers several online tools for alternative media researchers and practitioners.

AMPG is a multilingual, global collaborative internet site devoted to recording research on and connections with "alternative, radical, citizens, community, independent, militant, autonomous, media" throughout the world. Launched in October 2007, AMGP is affiliated with and supported by the OURMedia network. Its purpose is to centralise research results, projects, and resources on alternative communication, and to make them available to the community of researchers, activists, and actors who work on, with, or for alternative media.

AMGP is built on a wiki platform, which allows users to carry out modifications without constraint and allows web pages to be created to serve the needs of the users. The wiki is designed to address gaps through AMPG's 4 research orientations:

1.  The Global Bibliography on Alternative Media - records the research undertaken and the indigenous literature (literature produced by community media producers) on alternative media worldwide. The bibliography is organised by alphabetic order, by type of medium (press, radio, television, internet, etc.), by country/geographic area, and by theme. This collection aims to constitute a base of benchmark data on this subject, to integrate alternative media studies emerging from different disciplines, to explore the definitions of alternative media, to facilitate research in specific geographic areas and international comparisons on alternative media networks, and to conserve the historical memory of these media. In addition to this specialised bibliography, this section includes studies on: globalisation; public sphere, media, communication, and journalism; and social movements and contentious politics.
2. The Global Inventory/Map of Alternative Media - records alternative media projects country by country. The purpose of this work is to create an interactive chart of the world of alternative media, using Google map software. This inventory is made possible by a network of national or regional correspondents, whose research has made possible the comparison of these media by: type of medium, creation date, principal stages of development, equipment, coordinator, internal organisation, financing, publications, formats, distribution, institutional partners, website, address, contacts, and other information thought to be useful.
3. The Global Chronology of Alternative Media - records events related to the history of alternative media in the world, around a chronology, year by year, and country by country. This chronology should allow the accounting of specific events of national or regional importance, and transnational changes of and in the networks of alternative media. It is also designed to create an empirical base for testing theoretical hypothesis (for instance, the assumptions according to which alternative media is a local phenomenon related to a global context, of which its rise or decline depends on a certain number of contextual variables).
4. The Global Who's Who on Alternative Media - a database on alternative media academics, journalists, activists, and artists, which is designed to help researchers make sociological investigations on the producers of alternative media and to facilitate connections between alternative media practitioners.

The AMGP website also features: an introduction that opens a reflection on how to define, study, and theorise alternative media; a glossary that aims at enlisting and defining the concepts, notions, and expressions used to describe alternative media practices; and a blog featuring updated news about alternative media initiatives throughout the world (legislation, conferences, festivals, projects, new books or articles, repression, etc.)

This resource is designed for the academic community, participants in alternative media projects, and the general public (the AMGP describes itself as "offering a tool for the promotion of a democratic and critical debate in a wide range of social, political, economical or cultural issues").