Alternative Media, Alternative Voices? A Quantitative Analysis of Actor Diversity in Alternative and Mainstream News Outlets

Abstract

Alternative news media are largely independent players in the news environment, which allows them to publish more alternative, and possibly more radical, news content. Do they utilize their independence to display actors that are underrepresented in the mainstream news? And does it affect the actor diversity in their news coverage and the journalistic environment as a whole? This study scrutinizes the differences in actor diversity and actor presentation in articles published by alternative and mainstream news media to gauge if alternative media are more one-sided and if they contribute to the external actor diversity of the news environment. We analyze a sample of news articles on migration and social affairs published by two mainstream media and four alternative outlets. Despite limited differences in article-level actor diversity between alternative and mainstream news media, our findings highlight that right-wing and left-wing alternative media exploit their editorial independence differently to highlight other actor categories. Left-wing alternative news media present more civil society actors, while right-wing alternative news outlets pay more attention to right-wing politicians and parties. Thus, alternative news media are not that different in terms of internal actor diversity, but they modestly advance the external actor diversity in the news environment.

‘No room for hate in our country’: Constructing the LGBTI-friendly nation in news discourses after the murder of a gay man in Belgium

“…Back then, Vlaams Belang tried to capitalize on them but the party's opinion pieces were not published by newspapers either and only appeared on their website (Peumans, 2017). This analysis shows that they spread this discourse with the help of alternative media that offer a platform for radical right-wing parties (see Buyens and Van Aelst, 2021).…”

“…Homonationalism becomes visible in this discourse in the form of othering Muslims as homophobes, either through the presupposition that the perpetrators were Muslim or through contrasting Muslim communities with LGBTI-friendly autochthons. This more overt and explicit form of homonationalism occurs mainly in alternative right-wing publications that are known to pay more attention to radical-right political actors (Buyens and Van Aelst, 2021). Traces of it are also present in newspapers, in columns and readers’ letters.…”

Social media news editors as journalists or marketeers: Who are they and how do they identify themselves?

“…Both Belgium and the Netherlands are classified in the Northern European or Democratic Corporatist Model in the influential typology of Hallin and Mancini (2004) in the Western European or Democratic Corporatist Model. Both markets are characterised by strong public service media (Picone and Donders, 2020), relatively high trust in mainstream media (Newman et al, 2022), rising popularity of alternative news outlets (Buyens and Van Aelst, 2022) and shared ownership structures, as nearly the entire Dutch newspaper market is owned by two Belgian corporations (Hendrickx and Van Remoortere, 2022).…”

Love, Like or Angry in Times of COVID-19? Analysing News Brands’ Audience Engagement on Facebook Amidst a Pandemic

“…Flanders, Belgium's Dutch-speaking and affluent northern region of just under seven million inhabitants, boasts its own government with distinct media regulatory powers as well as its own media market and public service broadcaster (Picone and Donders 2020). Like in several other media markets, alternative news outlets have emerged in the last few years (Buyens and Van Aelst 2021). As shared ownership and consumption is low across the various Belgian media markets, we solely focus on Dutch-speaking news brands intended to inform Flemish citizens.…”