The Different Organizational Structures of Alternative Media: Through the Perspective of Alternative Media Journalists in Turkey and Greece

Abstract

This article analyses and compares the organizational structures of alternative media projects in Turkey and Greece; two countries that have recently witnessed networked social movements. Drawing on in-depth interviews with journalists working in six alternative media projects, we inform on the news production process, the news values and normative ideals adopted by these journalists while covering the news and explore if they make use of similar or different organizational structures. Our research invites a rethinking of alternative media to focus on their unique features and the differing experiences and values of their journalists. Our findings indicate that, alternative professional journalists' news production routines in both countries vary based on their organization's scale, normative ideals, the political and media contexts in which they operate. In this study, we reflect on what these different news production routines accomplish or fail to, and their broader implications for journalism.

The Struggle for News Value in the Digital Era

“…The production of alternative news can be seen as an implicit-and sometimes explicit-critique of dominant news values, conducted not in theory but in practice (Harcup 2013, p. 163). As one study of alternative news outlets in Turkey and Greece found, their news stories can "subvert the predominant discourse in the mainstream media" (Ozgul andVeneti 2022, p. 1316). Such critiques of news conducted in practice are by no means restricted to alternative media in the global North.…”