Alternative Media in Lebanon: The Role of Digital Platforms in a Polarized Hybrid Media System

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the literature about the roles and limitations of alternative media activism in different hybrid media systems by scrutinizing the organizational and discursive counter-hegemonic agency of digital alternative platforms in the Lebanese media system that is prone to high political parallelism, elite control, and polarization. To achieve this objective, semi-structured interviews with Lebanese journalists and a qualitative framing analysis for the alternative and mainstream media coverage of the Beirut Port explosion, which took place on the 4 August 2020 and led to the death of hundreds of people, were conducted. Our results show that Lebanese alternative media strive to escape the hegemonic control of sectarian and political groups by trying to achieve editorial and financial independence. Besides, they attempted in their framing of the explosion to develop a different narrative of the political conflict as a meta-sectarian one between the people and the ruling class from all the sects. However, they face the challenge of distinguishing themselves from the mainstream oppositional media that stands against the current regime. These results highlight the challenges and new possibilities opened by digital technologies for alternative media to escape the political hegemony in a polarized hybrid media system.