Was Arthur Miller correct when he said, “An era is said to have ended when its basic illusions are exhausted”? Most eras come to an end owing to a number of reasons, one of them being disillusionment. And mainstream media – broadcast and print – seems to be viewed with just such disillusionment.

For some dreamy-eyed journalists, the moment to part with basic illusions about media comes sooner, for some later. However, there is also something naïve and farcical in these illusions. A naïveté which comes from media being viewed myopically leading to a fashionable kind of disillusionment. But what follows such disillusionment? Usually the illusionary cycle simply has to move onward. And you hear the talk of another moral universe, the alternative media. Almost like a castle far away from the fairytale-turned-nightmare mainstream media.

So, where do these illusions begin? You may get some clues in mushrooming journalism schools in the country. Amid ingenue journalists in these institutions, you encounter two kinds of ‘extremism’. The first has symptoms of the ‘look-at-me syndrome’, which is displayed by those attracted towards the media for the lure of instant visibility on the idiot box, and a certain kind of fame. Material Aspirations. Mortal Cravings. Leading straight to Destination Media.

However, it is the second kind of extremism which almost prepares itself to be fashionably disillusioned. The motivation of some of these aspiring journalists is centred around the M.A.D. (making a difference) factor. Insulated and almost detached from the world outside, they are drawn to romantic notions of social conscience.

The problem is something which Robert Hardgrave had once described as the ‘revolution of rising expectations’. The radicalization of such expectations comes from a desperate need to find social relevance in a world which ironically could be alien to their cocooned existence. They all experience a delayed collective epiphany – that mainstream news media is not the space for an imagined solo performance of journalistic adventurism and intellectual integrity. It actually resembles a cacophony of news, commerce, stories being planted or ‘leaks’, and views being compromised. Leading to Disillusionment On Sleeves. And a need to Look For Space.

The illusions have to be recreated and re-instated, and within a space – alternative media, such reinstatements take the form of niche publications (mostly magazines), blogs, websites, films, documentaries and so on. The ‘alternative’ in the media seeks to be everything that the mainstream is not. It assumes to create a parallel ethical architecture which can accommodate the never-conceived or aborted stories of mainstream journalism. To Be. The Untold Preferred.

But there is a fundamental problem with such crusading counter-engagements. They don’t emerge and enlighten as an entity beyond the fragments of bleeding heart assortments. It has yet to shed its fetishes for simplistic monochromatic, ‘either this or that’ binaries.

Ironically, the alternative media space in this country has often fallen prey to the shortcomings which it seeks to juxtapose itself against. Resentment is not enough steam to run a counter-narrative, substance matters. But if you look at the print, web and visual space of alternative media in this country, one thing strikes you – the prism of looking at the world for what it is not, rather than looking at stories and situations for what they are.  It is an attitude which sticks and there is a reluctance to change it. Reporting and critical commentary on untold stories, issues and the hinterland have rarely moved away from narratives offered by touring and cynical journalists based in metropolitan India.

Look at the latest issues of some citadels of alternative media and chances are that you may get cosmetic changes in terms of genre (you may expect long form and literary pieces) but not in terms of insightful and rigorous treatment of themes. The long form experiments with different genres, (The New Yorker being the obvious reference point) but this has not necessarily meant any qualitative shift in the nature of discourse. In fact, in the realm of alternative media, most publications, websites and documentaries have reinforced the ‘stereotypes of the periphery’ as they have lacked substantive engagement with the fringes. (Interestingly, this is a point well made by Mrinal Pande, a leading Hindi mainstream journalist of our times, in her latest work The Other Country). Alternative media in cyberspace is still in a gestation stage, with very few online avatars one can discuss.

The space for alternative discourse in India sees an influential and, to some extent, seminal presence of practitioners and publications of a different tribe. Some academic publications like Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) have for decades been setting the tone for an intellectual discourse for a niche but cult readership. Though operating in different spheres of engagement, the multi-dimensionality of perspectives offered by such publications can be a point of empirical journalistic enquiry for alternative media. Although, it is strongly recommended to switch on a ‘bias-filter’ while doing so.

A blind spot for the alternative media universe has been its failure to subject itself to the same yardsticks of critique that it has for mainstream media. These are almost Hegelian fault-lines, fault-lines which are being increasingly exposed. Which is not good news for a media universe seeking an identity of its own, a separate Alternative Media Universe. Especially when it considers itself morally or ethically above mainstream media.

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