Indigenous Mass Media and Their Peculiarities

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Annotated bibliography
Conclusion
References

Introduction

This paper is dedicated to indigenous media to trace and analyze its peculiarities. For it, the podcast of Rosanna Deerchild, the video of Melissa Ridgen, and two news reports written by Shari Narine were chosen. The purpose of this work is to examine what subjects are pivotal for indigenous sources of information, how it is presented, and where there are differences between indigenous and traditional mass media.

Annotated bibliography

Deerchild, R. (2022). Family, community, healing: Documentaries highlight personal journeys in First Nations. CBCListen.

In this episode, Rosanna Deerchild provides three completely different stories of people connected with the history of the indigenous community of Canada. Regardless of the differences in subjects, all of them emphasize the importance of identity and understanding between individuals regardless of their origin. The first episode is dedicated to Sally Hart and her life-long search for her heritage. When her mother, Ada Lapp, was 16 or 17 years old, she found a summer job at a cannery in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island where she met Sally’s father, George Barker (Deerchild, 2022). After a short romance, a young woman returned home and realized that she was pregnant. She and George decided to elope but Ada was caught by her father and their plan was ruined. Ada was forced to give birth to Sally and give her for adoption.

Subsequently, Sally was adopted by the O’Reilly family, however, since her childhood, she has started to receive clues about her origin from doctors. Regardless of her adoptive mother’s words that her birth mother had died, Sally did not give up and tried to receive any information about relatives even if it was extremely different at that time. However, after a miraculous prayer, Sally was given an envelope by her adoptive father – in it, there were documents related to her adoption and a birth mother who was alive. Sally connected with her and the women finally met each other. From Ada, Sally knew her birth father’s name and found him as well. George Barker told Sally that his mother, Mary Anne Johnny, was from the Penelakut Tribe (Deerchild, 2022). Sally made a trip to Thetis island which was the tribe’s home and felt completely satisfied with finding her family connection. In the present day, living on Vancouver Island, Sally Hart speaks Hul’q’u mi’ num’, her grandmother’s native language.

The second episode of Deerchild’s podcast was dedicated to Leo Friday, Kashechewan First Nation chief who became the Anglican priest for Ontario’s James Bay Coast’s Cree Community. When Friday was an adolescent he came to a church to listen to the organ and started to help a priest. Fortunately, he did not go to a residential school and managed to avoid detrimental abuse from the school’s religious authorities for indigenous people’s traditions. While Western religion was regarded as a tool of colonization and separation of indigenous communities, Leo Friday believes that it is possible to connect traditional beliefs and faith in God. Moreover, he states that Christianity helps indigenous people to understand their place in this world. In the present day, the man is no longer a chief, however, he continues his work as a priest.

Finally, the third story is about Children of God, a Canadian musical that was written and directed by Corey Payette. Although it tells an artificial story of one family, it is based on real stories of residential school survivors. Children of God addresses the painful experience of indigenous people who were forced to attend a residential school where their traditions, cultures, languages, and identities were not allowed (Deerchild, 2022). Being the representative of the Mattagami First Nation, Payette was not raised in his tribe’s traditions and did not know about its experience. However, when he started to read about residential schools, he was completely dissatisfied with the way how information was negligently presented.

Thus, he began to communicate with residential school survivors collecting their stories to make a musical in which people’s pay could be expressed through music and singing. Payette wanted to demonstrate the strength of indigenous people and attract the attention of the rest of Canada to the issue of residential schools. According to him, people should see the story from indigenous people’s eyes to change their attitude toward the practice of residential schools that existed before and nothing was done. At the same time, Payette was happy to see how indigenous artists who prepared the musical for several years were proud of their origin and heritage. This tendency has additional importance taking into consideration that indigenous people who were forced to attend residential school felt the shame of who they were knowing that their origin provided them fewer opportunities in comparison with other Canadians.

Ridgen, M. (2022). Indigenous influencers spin their magic on InFocus. National News.

In her studio, Melissa Ridgen has a conversation with indigenous influencers who use social media platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, to introduce themselves and help others understand the peculiarities of their communities. In general, people express their talents in multiple ways – they dance, sing, make jokes, and even do magic. Moreover, they use social media for various purposes – they try to connect indigenous communities with other parts of the world, provide insight into their traditions, show their potential, educate, and support other indigenous people.According to Brett Mooswa, one of the indigenous influencers, the Internet provides unlimited opportunities for people to know about other cultures and demonstrate their peculiarities as well (Ridgen, 2022). He also mentions that being recognizable on social media is associated with great responsibility and a new experience of inspiring people. In addition, many indigenous people aim to revive their tribal traditions by showing them to other indigenous people and everyone who would like to see and help them cope with depression and other mental health issues.

Narine, S. (2022). Pope needs to give more than a qualified apology during a visit this summer, says survivor. Windspeaker.com.

In this article, the author addresses indigenous people’s concerns related to Pope Francis’s apology delivered to the indigenous communities for genocide, colonization, and abuse through the system of residential schools. Although the Pope promised to visit Canada in the summer, people believe that he should undertake more efforts to demonstrate the church’s repentance. In particular, indigenous people are not satisfied that the majority of sites important for residential school survivors are not on the plan of a visit. In addition, the members of indigenous committees want the Pope to host the opening of the monument to Indian residential school survivors in Ottawa, and the presence of all survivors will be sponsored (Narine, 2022). All in all, people expect more actions from the Pope that will demonstrate the church’s apology for the cultural, emotional, physical, and spiritual abuse of indigenous communities.

Narine, S. (2022). No need to wait for government regulations to have Indigenous midwifery in communities. Windspeaker.com.

In this article, the author speaks about issues related to midwifery in indigenous communities. According to the National Aboriginal Council of Midwives (NACM), people have a right to culturally competent health care without waiting for the changes in legislation and federal government funding. While Canadian universities provide education for midwives, it is not suitable for indigenous people as it does not address their cultural and spiritual peculiarities. In turn, indigenous midwives play a highly essential role in the promotion of care and the improvement of indigenous women’s reproductive and sexual health. Thus, NACM aims to improve educational programs to make them suitable for indigenous health care providers as well.

Conclusion

All four sources address indigenous people and the issues they face throughout history. In general, indigenous media describes the various aspects of these people’s lives. On the one hand, it may be regarded as more homogeneous with less topic available, especially in comparison with mainstream media. On the other hand, it describes multiple aspects of indigenous people’s lives targeting them in the same way local media targets a city’s residents. While the radio podcast and the video may be regarded as more neutral and positive, news reports are more persuasive and purposive. In general, indigenous media has multiple similarities with traditional media, however, it may be mentioned that indeginous media rely more on interviews with people and an emotional narration. It is explained by the authors’ efforts to address the pain of First Nations. All sources underline that indigenous people struggled with the consequences of the colonization in the past, and at the same time, they still experience multiple issues, especially mental and emotional ones, that derive from structural discrimination that still exists in society.

At the same time, throughout the whole indigenous media, the idea of the importance of traditions and culture is passing. It demonstrates the desire of indigenous people to show their uniqueness to the whole world and help their communities at the same time. This tendency is closely connected with struggles associated with colonization. The majority of indigenous people in the past faced spiritual, emotional, physical, and cultural abuse through the education system that forced them to abdicate tribal traditions and languages. However, while indigenous people currently start to revive their heritage and be proud of their origin, they still face discrimination when their detrimental experience is not valued.