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Calendar Description
This course examines the history, organization and social role of a range of independent, progressive, and
oppositional media practices. It emphasizes the ways alternative media practices, including the digital, are
the product of and contribute to political movements and perspectives that challenge the status quo of
mainstream consumerist ideologies.
Expanded Course Description
This course will introduce students to media that breaks with mainstream or corporate media in terms of
values, content, aesthetics, organization, production and consumption practices. It conceptualizes
alternative media as a political project that should be understood as part of broader social movements. Over
the course of the semester our discussions will be framed by the following prompts: What is alternative
media alternative to? What political conditions necessitate alternative media? What is the tactical or
ideological significance of alternative media to social movements? What politics and aesthetic principles
govern the production and design of alternative media? How do communities engage with and interact with
alternative media? We will apply these questions to a myriad of alternative media formats, from lo-fi activist
print cultures in the 1960s, to highly produced progressive news podcast broadcast online.
Learning Outcomes
• To understand the impetus for the production of alternative media, and the relationship between
these forms and mainstream or corporate media.
• To examine the historical role that alternative media has played in shaping social, political and
economic ideas.
• To trace the genealogy of different formats that alternative media has taken, from low-fi print
cultures to new media forms.
• To understand and use theoretical language and methods to express how media representations
convey meaning, and how those meanings are challenged and disrupted.
• To develop the capacity to interpret media artifacts in conventional and alternative
ways, including close reading and formal analysis.
• To address the role that new media technologies play in shaping how communities interact with
alternative media.
• To analyze and critique alternative media artifacts in ways that hold onto an analysis of
production as well as how audiences take up these representations in complex ways.
Course Materials
All course readings or videos are posted to Quercus under the “Library Reading List” tab. It is the student's
responsibility to read the articles/ watch the videos before class. All materials are available through the
University of Toronto Library. All links are located in the corresponding section on Quercus.
Course Evaluation
Title Details Weight Due Date
News Comparison and
Analysis Assignment

This assignment asks students

to compare how mainstream
and alternative press cover the
same news event or subject
matter. This analysis and
comparison (~750 words) must
incorporate insights from class
readings and discussions.
Further instructions and rubric
available on Quercus.
25% Due by 11:59 on 25 Oct.
Term Tests This course has two take-home
online Term Tests, which
require you to write two short
essays.
Only material covered since
the first test will be included in
the second term test. More
details will be provided in class.
2 X 20%= 40% (#1) Opens @ 12PM on 10
Oct. and due @ 12PM on 11
Oct
(#2) TBD final exam period
Critical Analysis
Assignment
Students will prepare a paper
(~1550 words) in which they
critically analyze an alternative
media artifact with evidence to
support the analysis. This
artifact can take any form
(newspaper, zines, music,
radio, digital media etc.).
Further instructions and rubric
available on Quercus.
35% Due by 11:59PM on 29 Nov.
All written assignments will be handed in electronically through the University’s Plagiarism Detection Tool.
All assignments are due at the end of the due date above Eastern Time (University’s time zone). Further
details, rubrics, and expectations regarding the assignments will be posted on Quercus.
Late Assessment Submissions Policy
I fully understand the many roles, responsibilities, obligations, and struggles students are faced with and
experience throughout the semester. Sometimes things happen despite our best efforts. If you need an
extension on an assignment, please reach out to me well in advance of the assignment due date. Extensions
may be granted based upon principles of fairness. Late assignments will receive a deduction of 2% per day
(including weekends) up to two weeks after the due date.

Email Policies
We would like to reserve our email time for helping you learn. Answers to questions about requirements,
deadlines, etc. that are not covered on the syllabus or assignment sheets will be posted in course
announcements: Please visit that section of the course first. If your email asks a question that can be
answered by looking at the syllabus, announcements, or Quercus, we will return a very short reply indicating
the location of your answer.
On weekdays we will respond to emails within 24 hours. If you do not get a response after 24 hours or at the
end of a Monday after a weekend, feel free to resend. We do not guarantee email replies on weekends,
nights, or holidays.
All emails must be sent from your UofT address. Please ensure your email has the course code in the subject
line, with a proper greeting and signature.

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