Managing Hybridity: How the Online Alternative Media Create Public Sphere in Taiwan.

The advent of the Internet has raised academic concern of its potential for democratic communications, an ideal diminishing in the mainstream media. The reviving discourses on the public sphere (and counterpublic sphere) have drawn attention of how the alternative media could mobilize civil participation by use of the Internet. A turn from technological determination to elaborative analysis of social context and actors has emerged, when diversity of online media is recognized. This paper focuses on Esouth Newsletter-the reputable online alternative media in Taiwan which carries marginalized voices of social movements. I argue the success of Esouth exemplifies a hybrid communication model that obscures the boundary between mass and alternative media. It borrows some practices of mainstream media, but at the same embodies the spirit of alternative media. The case asks for reflection upon the dualistic thinking of mass/alternative media. Yet it is overoptimistic and unnecessary to expect alternative media to become mainstreaming when commercialism has been eroding the cyberspace. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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