Alternative Press is a music magazine focusing on goth and punk music. In the words of the magazine:
"Since its debut as a photocopied fanzine handed out at a punk show in 1985, A.P. has been the publication where the honest word, the correct word, the authoritative word has been spoken on new music and youth culture. An early promotional sticker for A.P. read, “100% Manure-Free Magazine”—and that’s still true today. We’re the place where stars are born and where they return to get back to their roots. We’re the official seal of approval for artists seeking credibility." [[1] (http://www.altpress.com/sections/mediakit/07-05-2000/index.asp)]
To be clear, the alternativepress as defined here has little to do with what many might describe as "alternative." The term is mostly a catchall phrase used by the mainstream media, but these publications are not what some call the "dissident" press in America (see sidebar).
Alternative weeklies were not spared from the large-scale consolidation that hit the media in general in the 1990s.
The dissident press, like ethnic media, is difficult to examine as a group because of its wide geographic spread, lack of large ownership and absence of a large centralized organizing group.
Technically a part of the AlternativePress, and definitely one of the purest expressions of the counter-culture Zeitgeist, the underground comic book is actually a separate phenomenon.
It remains to be seen whether the most lasting legacy of the AlternativePress, the disabling of any governing system of courtesy or restraint in public discourse, will turn out to have hastened the end of a nightmare or the beginning of one.
As long as there have been media there have been alternative media, and the alternativepress is a subset of them.
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