A User Research on Alternative Media

Abstract

This research aims to contribute to the debate on the concept of alternative media by trying to understand what this term means for its users. The responses that emerged in the focus group discussions revealed which values and which characteristics are important in the eyes of the participants to define a media as “alternative”. The interviews were analyzed with the grounded theory method and the themes and sub-themes were determined with the open coding method. The first point to note is that interviewees consider a wide range of media as alternative. These include a channel affiliated with a large conglomerate; news broadcasters of different countries; some small-scale media organizations, journalists broadcasting through social media platforms, opposition and pro-government publishers coexist. In the study, it was determined that the alternative media users of the focus groups attach more importance to the content than the formal features such as being non-commercial.

Keywords

• alternative media
• mainstream media
• user research
• journalism
• focus group