"Talking Strongly": Indigenous Media in Australia

This article explores means of protecting culture and language through media technology by focusing on Australia's Aboriginal-owned Indigenous Community Television (ICTV). Its formation was motivated by what Griffith University researchers describe, based on an audience study of indigenous media conducted from 2004 to 2007, as follows: "Audiences were unanimous in their conclusion that mainstream media in Australia have failed them, and they've turned to their own media for reliable news and information."

As author Michael Meadows explains, approximately 180 community radio and television stations broadcast to Indigenous communities in Australia. Until recently, the vast majority of these stations essentially re-broadcast mainstream television into remote and regional aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. But remote indigenous broadcasters - "determined to counter the often culturally damaging mainstream media images dominating TV screens in their communities" - formed ICTV in 2001. It began as a narrowcast/split channel service initiated by PY Media on Imparja, the aboriginal-owned commercial television station. By 2005, programme production had increased to almost 300 hours, with the service including contributions from regional hubs. Until October 2006, when ICTV was incorporated as a separate organisation, PY Media coordinated 20 hours a day of indigenous community TV programming. The 20 hour block was refreshed each month. In 2006, the federal government committed AUD$48 million over 4 years to develop a National Indigenous Television Service, a move that many of the indigenous people interviewed as part of the Griffith University research perceived as an effort to "wrest control of the ICTV initiative away from the bush communities that started it" (although, as Meadows points out, it was unclear how the signal would be delivered to anyone other than those with a satellite dish).

Meadows argues that indigenous community radio and television stations play a critical role in maintaining cultures and languages. "Where local and culturally appropriate frameworks are used to structure community media, then these media have become part of the local community and local culture." He provides the example of Umeewarra Media in Port Augusta, South Australia, which has chosen 2 of the 10 indigenous languages for broadcast because of their relevance to local audiences. The absence of an audience-producer barrier "has led to innovative uses of a range of technologies: radio (particularly talkback, language and music), video through ICTV, and [ultra-high frequency] UHF radio." Meadows has found, through his research, that audiences regard indigenous radio and television as "powerful media for education, particularly for children and thus, their future....For many of the people we spoke with, ICTV is much more than a mere television service....The integration of media technology - in this case, television and UHF radio - with local culture is clear. Here, traditional frameworks for communication remain strongly in place. The technology is merely a tool for enabling it."

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