Julie and I have a new article, a short piece in Democratic Communiqué, on the need for alternative social media. It’s a paper that explains some of the reasons why we’re building the S-MAP. It also calls on media justice organizations, including the publisher of Democratic Communiqué, to start using alternative social media systems (such as Twister or GNU social) as part of their larger media practices. After all, we want democratic media, and we’re not as likely to get it with corporate social media.

Speaking of building the S-MAP, we’ve had a relatively quiet summer, but we will be adding more materials to the site over the coming months. A new addition is the bibliography — we expect that will grow as more attention is paid to alternative social media. If you have suggestions for academic articles that explore alternative social media, let us know. Another new addition to the S-MAP will happen soon — we’re going to pay for a certificate and offer an HTTPS connection (please be patient — this takes money to do, after all!).

Going back to Democratic Communiqué, in addition to our short article, there are other pieces relevant to alternative media broadly. First, Sandra Jeppson has a longer research article on “alternative media power.” Second, there’s a review of S-MAP Advisory Board member Victor Pickard’s fantastic book America’s Battle for Media Democracy.