This book examines how the past decade’s dropping levels of media and political trust and sweeping populist election victories have coincided with a new wave of alternative media across European countries. It taps into the renewed scholarly interest in media actors that, in different ways and to different extents, challenge established news media and a perceived societal mainstream.

This edited volume further advances this (re-)emerging research field conceptually and methodologically and develop frameworks for analysis and systemic perspectives that are applicable across dissimilar national media and political contexts. In so doing, the book extends beyond the here and now of single-country case studies and lays a theoretical, methodological, and analytical foundation for better linking and integrating future empirical studies. The contributions are organized into three main sections: conceptual cornerstones, methodological challenges, and systemic conditions.

Including cases from the Northern, Central, Eastern, and Southern parts of Europe, the book showcases work from some of the leading scholars within the field of alternative media research, as well as from up-and-coming junior researchers. It is a key text in alternative media, relevant to students and scholars in media and journalism studies, political communication, audience research, cultural studies, political sociology, and related disciplines.

"This volume brings together theoretically sophisticated and methodologically rigorous perspectives on alternative media studies from crucial European scholars who have their collective fingers on the pulse of this multidisciplinary field. — Jennifer Rauch, Linfield University, U.S., author of Resisting the News: Engaged Audiences, Alternative Media, and Popular Critique of Journalism and co-editor (with Stephen Cushion) of the Routledge Handbook of Alternative and Participatory Journalism."

- Jennifer Rauch, Linfield University, USA

Eva Mayerhöffer is Associate Professor of Political Journalism and Comparative Media Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark.

Miriam Kroman Brems is Postdoctoral Researcher at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Tine Ustad Figenschou is Professor of Journalism at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.

Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk is Professor of Journalism at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway.