Seite - 147 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Augie Fleras | Ethnic and Aboriginal Media in Canada 147 Rennie 2006), and are highly partisan in empowering the disempowered Not surprisingly, populist news values differ from those of the main- stream. Whereas the latter emphasize the centrality of conflict or ab- normality as newsworthy, especially when involving minority women and men, populist news values focus on minority success stories and positive role models. The concept of populist media can be further subdivided into alternative, community, ethnic and aboriginal media. Although classification of these media into a single category may conceal more than it reveals, they share much in common, including closer relations with audiences, less preoccupation with the bottom line, more attention to areas of local interest, including city politics, offer an alternative to mainstream indifference to homeland issues, provides useful information for settling down and fitting in, promote public dialogue and exchange of ideas for the mobilization of audiences into social action, and challenge the status quo with its prevailing distribution of power and privilege (Journalism.org 2004; Rennie 2006; Downing 2000; Skinner 2006). The exponential growth of ethnic or minority media not only reflects global migration patterns, but also an internet-inspired emergence of various participatory, collaborative, oppositional, alternative, and community media practices that embrace the changing ways in which people ‘use’ and ‘make’ their media (Deuze 2006). In challenging the concentration of corporate media power by way of a participatory global media culture, Skinner (2006:217) says: Rather than tailor content, organizational structure, and production practices to maximize return on investment, alternative media foreground special social issues and values. In terms of organizational structure, they often purposefully shun traditional hierarchical models of organization to facilitate as much input as possible into the production. And in terms of production, in order to countermand the tendency to have professional values dictate the subjects, structures and sources of content, they often seek participation and contributions from the communities they serve rather than rely on professional journalists. But while relatively easy to glamourize the populist case, populist media are not nearly as unsullied by crass business concerns as many believe. Despite a niche based orientation, their commercial dynamics may not altogether differ from mainstream media. Publishers and producers are known to follow a time proven trajectory: track what is profitable, repackage it as authentic in bolstering the bottom line, and link the package with a preferred demographic (Jeff Yang in Hsu 2002). Even issues of cooperation and consensus are