The present volume makes an attempt to open a critical dialogue on issues raisedby alternative political and media practices. Though neither alternative media canbe fully addressed as ‘conveyors’ of political practice, nor alternative politicalpractices do necessarily ‘employ’ media practices, their ‘fusion’ sheds light oncritical aspects of the dialectic relation between democratic process andcommunication.Alternative media and alternative political practice are rather neglected fields ofenquiry, pushed aside by a more active concern with the mass media andmainstream politics. To an extent, the advent of the Internet seems to haveresuscitated academic interest in these fields, as new communication technologiesare thought to favor looser and marginalized political groups which in turn try tomake the most of the potential afforded by the internet. It is thus hardly surprisingthat most of the contributions to this issue focus on the use of newcommunication technologies either for social movement mobilization or forspreading ‘viral’ political and humorous messages or even for producing andtransmitting alternative radio.