Organizing media: A political economy typology of alternative media.

This article presents a political economy typology of alternative media projects based on a participatory communicative action research (PCAR) study by the Media Action Research Group (MARG), which interviewed 80 media activists across 38 projects in eleven countries between 2015 and 2019. Using an intersectional political economy framework, the research identifies five key dimensions of alternative media organizing—structures, funding, labour, imaginaries, and intersectional power—and categorizes projects into six ideal types: critical entrepreneurial journalism startups, hybrid vertical–horizontal media projects, hybrid commercial-activist media projects, media workers' cooperatives, volunteer-run DIY media collectives, and autonomous DIY media networks. The study highlights tensions between anticapitalist values and economic sustainability, the challenges of maintaining horizontality amid informal hierarchies, and the importance of aligning media practices with alternative media imaginaries for long-term resilience. It emphasizes the ongoing role of alternative media in social justice and democracy, particularly as mainstream and local media face crises and social media platforms dominate information flows.