Center for Compassionate Social Change

CENTER FOR COMPASSIONATE SOCIAL CHANGE
Alternative Media

"The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society.

In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfil this role requires systematic propaganda." -Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon Books, 1988).

In presenting only a very narrow range of options on major issues, the mass media convinces the public that there is no alternative to the solutions it presents to problems. Cut taxes! Make war! Deport them!

If we are ever to see a new vision for a better world, we must start reading alternative sources of information, sources that aren't dependent on corporate advertising dollars, sources that care more about telling the truth than about selling papers, sources that aren't just run by multi-millionaires. Welcome to the world of alternative media, a world where we discover that there are, in fact, thousands of alternatives to the problems we face. I have chosen a few of my favourites here.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees the right of free expression to everyone. Find out how this right has been curtailed in today's mass media. (An Adbusters campaign)

AlterNet.org is a new online magazine, information source and community that combines quality journalism, public-interest content, interactivity, and passionate advocacy, providing information that will encourage activism and civic engagement.

An online source of international news from a progressive perspective on global development, and environmental and social issues. Also a gateway to many non-profit organizations.

An excellent net-based alternative independent media center. Excellent coverage of major protests against economic globalization and corporate rule all over the world.

ProtestNet is a group of activists working together to publicize international activism and mass mobilizations around the world.

YES! Magazine: A journal of positive futures.
Published by the Positive Futures Network, an independent, nonprofit organization that supports
people's active engagement in creating a more just, sustainable, and compassionate world.

New Internationalist magazine.Reporting on issues of world poverty and inequality; focusing attention on the unjust relationship between the powerful and the powerless in both rich and poor nations; debating and campaigning for the radical changes necessary if the basic material and spiritual needs of all are to be met.

Turtle Island Native Network.
Valuable source of news from a First Nations perspective, as well as resources
on the environment, Native rights issues, and First Nations culture.