The digital transformation of the public sphere has led to an upsurge of alternative news media on the net that compete with professional information journalism. As counter-publics, they stand in opposition to the hegemonic public sphere of politics and the media. Lisa Schwaiger takes stock of alternative news media in German-speaking countries and classifies them typologically. Using a network-analytical approach, she examines the relations between alternative and mainstream media in the Twitter sphere and provides new insights into a socially highly relevant topic.