Causa de inelegibilidade – promessa de cumprimento integral de

Atton indicates how alternative media create spaces for alternative voices: ‘the community, the contrary and the subversive’ (2002: 1) are the subject of his book Alternative media. Locating his study in the 1990s, he attributes the ‘explosion of fanzines and zines since the 1980s’ (2002: 3) as the reason for a rise in independent and small-scale publishing during that era. Punk’s resistance to the hegemony and drive for self-expression spilled out of music into dress and self-publishing. Matthew Worley’s paper Punk, politics and British (fan)zines, 1976-84: ‘While the world was dying, did you wonder why?’ contextualises the political content of 1980s punk fanzines (2015: 80). He traces the history of fanzines back to the: ‘home-made magazines produced by science-fiction fans in the US and Britain from the 1930’s’ (2015: 80) and indicates that the printed output surrounding punk quickly ‘transcended their “fan” prefix’ (ibid: 78). Atton defines ‘zines’ as ‘self-edited, self-financed and self-published serials’ which:

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[G]o beyond the fan writing to cover an extremely wide spread of subjects,

including politics, the personal (perzines), “fringe culture”, and issues surrounding sexuality and sexual practices and life at work. At both levels of generality,

almost any niche magazine could be considered a zine. (2002: 58)

Clare Cook and Esa Sirkkunen have describe journalistic start-ups as niche (2015) and, since Williams et al (2014: 27) indicate that printed material is part of the hyperlocal repertoire, zine culture helps to shed light on the way that hyperlocal operates in a subcultural sense. Worley states that the zines of the 1980s: ‘spanned a subterranean web of alternative media through which dissenting voices and formative political opinions could be addressed and discussed’ (2015: 79-80). Of particular interest are the themes of resistance to mainstream media: ‘Fanzines offered a creative space to contest and circumvent what Cobalt Hate described in 1980 as the “bullshit ridden” coverage of the weeklies’ (ibid: 81). Worley indicates that: ‘zines offered a very real alternative to the established music press, covering bands and scenes dismissed by NME [New Musical Express]’ (2015: 84). As well as challenging the ‘institutionalized music industry’ 1980’s zines, provided a lens to view grassroots punk culture (ibid). ‘Zines’ evolved from

dissatisfaction with mainstream media, in a situation which resonates with the grassroots nature of hyperlocals. Although, Hess and Waller caution against aligning punk zines too closely with internet era independent publishers: ‘Hyperlocal news is not the radical or flashy style often associated with subcultures (as far as content goes, hyperlocal is excessively ordinary). Although it does share some synergies with “anti-authoritarian”

zine culture’ (2015: 202).

Punk zines very much reflected the bricolage nature of the subculture, with pictures and headlines, cut and pasted from other papers to create anarchic paper montages which were both aesthetically and politically challenging (Worley, 2015). Spelling mistakes were left uncorrected and hastily assembled pages were often out of order, Hebdige noted that: ‘The overwhelming impression was one of urgency and immediacy, of a paper produced in indecent haste, memos from the front line’ (1979: 111). In terms of the wider cultural situation Worley comments that punk emerged at a ‘distinct

historical juncture’ when ‘significant socio-economic, political and cultural change undoubtedly did take place’ (2015: 89). This linking of the micro level with larger historical, macro forces (C. Wight Mills, 2000; West, 2016: 19) is as applicable to the emergence of independent hyperlocal operations in the internet-era of the new millennium, especially in the light of the 2008 recession and wider socio-political situation. Hebdige indicates the situation thus:

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[W]ith long-term jobless figures rising in tandem with the prohibitive cost of higher education, with financial insecurity, political instability and governmental

dysfunction epidemic on a global scale, with a growing chasm separating the uber haves from the have-nothing-much to speak-of underclass, with ever direr predictions concerning the future of the planet and the non-viability of our modus operandi as a species, the kids today are clearly not alright. (2014: 4)

Guy Standing’s work also highlights this marginalised ‘precariat’ section of society which exists in a permanent situation of precarious insecurity (2016) underlining subliminal societal tensions.

In broad terms, ‘Zine’ can therefore be understood as an umbrella term for ‘niche’

magazine, a description which resonates with small scale independent hyperlocal

publications. ‘Zine culture’ is identified as a subculture by Michelle Kempson in her paper

‘I sometimes wonder whether I’m an outsider’: negotiating belonging in zine culture in which she describes the output as ‘independent, not-for-profit publications’ (2015: 1081).

She adds that zines are: ‘predominately circulated via subcultural networks and represent a convenient way to exchange information within these contexts’ (ibid). This insider/outsider status to which Kempson refers is a feature of subcultures and Hess and Waller use a similar argument to suggest why mainstream media have failed to

commercially exploit hyperlocal sites, describing them as: ‘outsiders trying too hard to fit in’ (2015: 200).

In a situation reminiscent of the effect of moveable type, technology played its part in the democratisation of print for the production of zines. The punk movement ‘relied on the photocopier’ which made it possible to quickly and easily reproduce pages, it:

‘enabled editors to paste up and print their own publications, which they did in their hundreds’ (Atton 2002: 38). With technological improvements have come web-offset printing and digital typesetting which have brought the costs of both large and small print runs within the reach of grassroots operations (ibid.), developments which will be

discussed later in the chapter. Atton reflects on print’s continuing appeal: ‘Despite what many pundits will have us believe, the printed page is far from moribund – nowhere does it appear more vigorous than in its alternative manifestations’ (2002: 3) a situation which appears to be reflected in the presence of print in independent publishing (Radcliffe, 2012a; BBC, 2013; Ponsford, 2013; Ponsford, 2014; Ponsford, 2016; Coulter et al, 2018).

Hess and Waller indicate that while print still has a presence in driving readership to the digital product it is not reliant on it: ‘The internet is used to publicise zines and reach out

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to others, but they are not dependent upon digital technology to survive’(2015: 202) which provides an interesting lens through which to view Williams et al’s findings that print products are being used to subsidise online activities (2014: 29).