ABSTRACT
This chapter follows the direction of the previous one and looks at how grassroots political communication develops in the media environment, focusing on relational media practices towards distinct media organisations, outlets and technologies. It focuses on social ties between activists and media subjects which lay outside, at the boundaries of radical left-wing journalists and inside alternative media practitioners the social movement milieu. The chapter then turns to interactions involving activists and technological objects before, during and after protest events and show that information and communication technologies usually combine with other technological supports and/or face-to-face interactions within the physical spaces of conflict. It finally discusses four categories of relational activist media practices and argues that they are frequently combined during the same protest event, and that they can be directed towards mainstream, radical left-wing and alternative media. The chapter explores how activists interacted with the media environment with regard to different types of media organisations, outlets, technologies and professionals.
