This subproject examines the wave of self-published magazines by the New Left that emerged in West Germany and Switzerland during the long 1970s. The beginning of this period is often framed through the disintegration of the 1968 student movement, as it splintered into diverse political factions, disillusioned with the emancipatory promise of the bourgeois public sphere. Within this fragmented landscape, the concept of counter-publics served as a unifying theoretical element. Creating counter-publics became a political rallying cry for disparate groups and movements. Across West Germany and Switzerland, myriad groups launched their own magazines, aiming to create platforms for information and experiences considered suppressed: a counterweight to bourgeois media, whose opinion-forming and reporting was perceived as distorting and manipulative.

Contemporaries referred to this phenomenon as the alternative press, whose size was estimated at 400 titles in West Germany and 130 in German-speaking Switzerland by the late 1970s. These magazines were not only central tools for communication and political organization but equally influential in forming subjectivities and communities. While recent scholarship has illuminated the governmental power and emotional productivity of the alternative press, this project approaches these publications from a media history perspective. It asks: Who were the producers and what motivated them? What were the production conditions? How was the infrastructure—distribution, printing, financing—organized? Who were the readers and how did they shape content? Historical, source-based studies addressing these questions remain scarce. The project examines the structure and structural transformation of New Left counter-publics during the long 1970s.

To answer these questions, the project focuses on six exemplary magazines: ID – Informationsdienst für unterbliebene Nachrichten (1973–1981), Blatt: Stadtzeitung für München (1973–1984) and Kölner VolksBlatt (1973–1982/1999) from West Germany, and Focus (1969–1979) and LeserZeitung (1975–1979), which merged into Tell (1979–1985), from Switzerland. These magazines were published over extended periods and widely circulated. The analysis draws on the magazines themselves as well as editorial protocols, documentation of networking meetings, and correspondence.

By analyzing the organizational structures, production practices, and infrastructures of these historical formations, this project contributes to current debates on the concept of counter-publics, which often lack sufficient historical grounding. At the same time, recent upheavals in digital public spheres have lent new urgency to questions about how publics are configured and sustained. Examining how counter- and alternative media environments were materially organized and challenged in an earlier era of media transformation may offer valuable perspectives on these contemporary concerns.