ABSTRACT
The rise of the internet has been accompanied by the promise of free communication and a borderless cyberspace where states and businesses have fewer capacities than in the offline world to intervene into free expression. This platform has been particularly suitable for community, alternative and citizen media, as it has increased dramatically the opportunities of participatory and interactive communication – a goal which had been pursued by media activists and community organisations since the early radio experiments and alternative print publications (Brecht, 1927; Atton, 2001; Downing, 2001; Coyer, Dowmont and Fountain, 2008). As a global network, it has allowed alternative media producers to break out of their niches and marginalisations and address a global audience. And as an open platform that requires neither expensive broadcast equipment nor a broadcast licence, it has offered new possibilities for non-profit and radical media that have typically suffered from chronic lack of resources and have rarely been recognised by policymakers (Hintz, 2009; Coyer and Hintz, 2010). Many innovative projects and organisations have not only exploited but expanded these possibilities, from alternative internet service providers to alternative social media platforms, and from the open posting innovations of Indymedia to the broader range of citizen journalism (Atton, 2004; Allan and Thorsen, 2009; Milan, 2013; Hintz, 2014).
