che and mass media are crucial to the assembly, demarcation and development of subcultures. They do not just represent but actively participate in the processes of music culture (Thornton 188).
The central question is, "How alternative is the alternative culture of the rave dance scene?" Obviously, in part the answer to this question depends on what other culture one is comparing the scene with. The answer also depends on what one means by "alternative". The rave scene is obviously an alternative to the polka scene, or the Yanni scene, or the jazz scene, at least in the sense that it offers an alternative way of life including clothing, appearance, music, ingestion of substances, attitudes toward the mainstream, etc. However, in that sense, alternative comes to mean little because every scene can be viewed as alternative to all other scenes.
By "alternative," then, Thornton and the ravers mean a scene which is far outside of the mainstream alternative choices (polka, jazz, Yanni), and not only outside of but in active and vehement defiance and even hatred of the mainstream culture.
The major media, as well, for its own purposes, claims that this
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