Video the Changing World

Helen Holmes is Director of Communications Studies at the University of
Calgary.

This volume of essays arose out of the 1990 Vidéo Tiers-Monde
international symposium in Montreal called “Alternative Communication
and Development Alternatives: On the Democratic Use of Video and
Television.” Bringing together 23 writers, the volume explores the
diverse ways people are exercising their right to communicate, rather
than their right simply to receive the information disseminated by the
dominant and increasingly monolithic media. Difficult to define,
alternative video—or alterative video, as it is sometimes called
(because of its power to effect change)—includes community television,
public television, networks of subscribers, multiple copies of
cassettes, mobile viewing units, viewers’ groups, and various other
means of communication that have arisen out of opposition to traditional
media or because traditional media left needs unfilled. Descriptions of
projects in Latin America, Canada, and Africa and discussions of global
issues raise provocative questions about the role of media in
establishing a “new world order” or making possible a genuinely
participatory democracy. The volume is a welcome contribution to the
scant literature on the role of marginalized media in social
communication.