Communications and Media

Communications and Media





Communications and Media

Introduction Documenting on film about the various things around has allowed people to capture and show case the essences of how these things function. However, when documenting tribes or tribalism, protocols need to be followed, so the documented material should be preserved and avoid any fraudulent activities. An examination of the development of Indigenous media throughout the world shows that people do not necessarily see themselves as imprisoned by the dominant culture of the mass media and, in fact, find their own 'spaces' in which to produce alternative viewpoints and cultures (Bostock, 1997).

Discussion

Documenting the Aboriginals dates back to the 1920s, when these people were first discovered in Australia. In fact, some suggest that the media and wider cultural fields can be conceived of as 'battle- fields, as spaces in which contests for various forms of dominance take place (Bostock, 1997).

There are many examples of active resistance by Indigenous peoples to imposed national cultures. This resistance or 'Indigenisation' has been described as 'tribalism'—a return to smaller, more cohesive and self-reliant communities, shaped by a common language, ethnicity or religion. In order to extend this 'tribalisation', people find 'hidden places' in which to express themselves, regardless of restrictions on communication. This bears a striking resemblance to the clan system which still governs much of Indigenous society across Australia. Recent developments in communication, for example the Cape York Digital Network, highlight the importance of the clan as a primary unit around which communication is structured. The media adopted by such groups generally may not use the capital-intensive technology of the mainstream media and often lack their coverage (Byrne, 1995).

However, this makes them no less important as forms of cultural expression and resistance because they are essentially about empowering local groups and cultures. Central to this empowerment is the ability of Indigenous communities to control the means of production of culturally specific media products. All societies have their own lines of communication and, while 'song lines' relate specifically to Indigenous Australian culture arid communication, we have used this term in the title as a metaphor for a way of thinking about communication within the many Indigenous cultures we discuss. Through the title Song lines to Satellites we also suggest that the use of information technologies by Indigenous people remains linked to traditional forms of communication. Technology does not replace traditional communication forms; rather it offers Indigenous communities another tool for communicating. In this way, Indigenous media producers appropriate technology for their own ends. At the same time, there can be a constant tension between traditional processes of discussion and decision-making and the 'modernizing' constraints of time and technology in program production . This is because the link between traditional communication forms and communications technologies is not seamless; rather it involves a process of negotiation, because what is being created is a new cultural product that grows out of the traditional form. This idea is central to the way in which we have approached Indigenous media ...