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Alternative Media's Role in Chicago's Journalism Ecosystem Through independent outlets that concentrate on local communities or issues, alternative and independent media outlets help diversify the news coverage. These smaller groups often focus on a single group or topic within a certain issue. Your editorial decisions may be [[https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/decided|decided]] upon by a small group, often lacking resources and capacity for hiring professional journalists. Moreover, many of the people who are behind these organizations are also active in social movements. By nature, their work is activist in nature and often adheres to the normative values of social movement theory, which emphasizes deliberative democratic participation as well as providing alternative narratives for marginalized voices. It is important at this critical time to understand how political situations shape the values and organizational practices they support. This special issue provides some insight into this transformation process. How media are understood is heavily influenced by political systems. Different political theory presents different conceptions about democracy, public spheres, as well as the ways in which these outlets can function. This, in turn affects their interpretation. 2019; Figenschou and Frischlich 2019). Some researchers will emphasize the concept that citizen's media promotes democratic processes by promoting participation while others will focus on diversity of media coverage in order to counter ideological hegemony. The definition of alternative media remains a critical issue. Some authors adopt a relationshipal framework which characterizes alternative as self-proclaimed corrections that challenge dominant discourse. (Harlow 2022). Other scholars use analytical frameworks to study how these media are different from mainstream and if their influence reaches beyond mainstream. Aslan Ozgul and Veneti (2022) investigate the changes in organizational structures and power relationships within large-scale alternative media projects in Turkey, Greece and other countries. They found that some maintain a collective and participative culture as their staff increases and they produce more content. Their study shows that this shift may have an impact on whether these projects maintain their "alternativeness", but become more similar to professional actors. Block Club Chicago provides an example of this growing recognition, reporting on local events and issues within Chicago neighborhoods. This organization shows that community journalism can be used to bridge divides between residents, increase civic engagement and empower people to make better decisions. By focusing on community stories, this project seeks to ensure all Chicagoans have access to the information necessary for living a fulfilling and sustainable life did something happen in chicago today - [[http://illinoismail.top/llinois4/|illinoismail.top]] - Chicago. This project serves as a model for other organizations who are seeking to serve as the bridge for civic engagement that our city's mainstream media has either failed to provide or refused.[[https://abc7chicago.com/post/south-chicago-shooting-today-man-fatally-shot-alley-8000-block-escanaba-avenue-police-department-says/15693437/|(Image: [[https://picography.co/page/1/600|https://picography.co/page/1/600]])]]
