Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Convenors:
David Tafler, Muhlenberg College, Allentown Pennsylvania USA, davidwaru@gmail.com
Lyndon Ormond-Parker, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, lyndon.ormond-parker@rmit.edu.au
Daniel Featherstone, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, daniel.featherstone@rmit.edu.au
This session explores the preservation of First Nations heritage through the development and distribution of new media channels for urban and remote communities. In the twenty-first century, personal and collective identity evolves from the communication that exists through online access.
The continuing impacts of colonisation present a challenge to preserve centuries-old Indigenous knowledge in a global environment. First Nations groups must have access to the digital world to participate in essential online services.
First Nations groups can sustain their culture by negotiating contemporary practices within an online world that absorbs its participants, especially younger people. ICTV, the Indigenous Community Television Network, and First Nations Media organisations provides one such outlet. With the continuing encroachment of social media, other channels might prove necessary.
How do land councils mobilise resources that provide access to marginal and remote communities? How do First Nations people, particularly young people, engage social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat, where far-removed corporate entities shape the rules of engagement?
How do systems of community engagement and participation, such as ICTV, social media, and digital inclusion, provide a foundation and/or context for self-determination, and how might that self-realisation inform other forms of media engagement and cultural heritage preservation?
This session invites the exchange of ideas among participants from across the digital spectrum—from community television advocates to social media activists, to explore the ongoing evolving interface between First Nations heritage and the digital world.