Contemporary Crusaders and Timeless Elders: Building Cultural Capital through Alternative Media Texts

Abstract

The following research examines the role of cultural capital in the reading of alternative media texts. I interviewed leaders of small social justice organizations in the midwestern United States in order to discover the ways in which they developed cultural capital and read resistance within alternative media texts. From the interviews I found that the participants learned cultural capital from Timeless Elders and/or Contemporary Crusaders of activism. I also found that two types of resistance were read within the alternative media texts: a hegemonic form of resistance based on militant rejection of materials and an emanciapatory form of resistance based on adjustive rejection of materials. Through my analysis I found that the type of cultural capital that a participant had learned played an important role in the type of resistance that they read. The themes and concepts which emerged through the interviews hold significant implications for the conceptualization of modern social justice movements.

The following paper was presented at the 2004 Conference for the Center for Global Media Studies in Seattle, WA. The author would like to thank Dr. Debbie Dougherty (University of Missouri-Columbia) for her help and insight.

Notes

¹Names of people or organizations (i.e., Mystical City, Activist A-H) have been changed to protect their anonymity.

²The following footnote provides information about the participants referenced throughout the essay:

Activist A described himself as an environmentalist who was involved with the local Green Party. He was 34 years old with a Bachelor's degree and organized activities and protests for a local environmental awareness group. Activist B was a 24-year-old graduate student at Mystical State University working on her Masters degree. She was a member of various campus activist groups, and led one particular group in the removal of corporate advertisements from the university. Activist C was a 34-year-old graduate-teaching assistant at Mystical State University working on his Ph.D. He was in a position of leadership in many student run organizations on campus. Activist D was yet another graduate teaching assistant working on his Masters and was 31 years old. He worked alongside Activist B organizing the removal of corporate advertisements from the campus. Activist E was an environmentalist and life-partner of Activist A; the two worked side-by-side to organize protests and events. She was 23 years old and had studied environmental science and conservation at Eastern United States University.

Activist F described herself as a transient revolutionary—she was an anarchist, lived within a collective, and engaged in activities such as “dumpster diving” to sustain herself. She helped to organize events and actions of the local Food Not Bombs group in Mystical City. She was 20 years old and attended classes at Mystical State University. Activist G was a 46-year-old faculty member at Mystical State University; he had moved to the United States from a western European country. He sponsored several social justice-oriented student groups on campus, and worked with the steering committee of a large social justice group in Mystical City. Activist H was a 28-year-old owner of what he described as “socialist restaurants.” Through his restaurant Activist H promoted social justice events and provided a space where alternative media were available to customers and employees.