Indigenous Academy

INDIGENOUS ACADEMY is teaming up with indigenous communities worldwide on a new project to empower indigenous communities with the goal of helping them to produce their own media coverage to voice the news and views of their communities.

Alpeggiani Marco, Executive Director of INDIGENOUS ACADEMY, photojournalist, International Cultural Mediator and pupil of the international recognized editor Colin Jacobson said yesterday that this collaboration holds immense value for the indigenous community because it will give them a channel to amplify their voices across various media platforms.

He said, “It is critically important for our community media initiative, which can empower indigenous communities through the improvement of their media literacy and digital abilities.”

The project is tasked with supporting media projects in developing countries, and works to foster the growth of free and pluralistic media.

The announcement added that INDIGENOUS ACADEMY will work with indigenous communities in Africa, Europe, Asia, America and Oceania to enhance their media, information and digital literacy with the goal of learning how to critically access, evaluate and use digital content to make informed decisions and participate in the process of national development.

It noted that the project will address the challenges that indigenous communities face, including limited access to mass media information in their mother tongues, which often leads to the exclusion of their voices from public debates and discussions.

“By enhancing the skills and abilities of indigenous youths to create and share news content, the project will help amplify their voices and raise awareness about issues, which are important for their communities, and call for an effective response from the relevant authorities,” INDIGENOUS ACADEMY said.

It said that as the project training sessions will cover various aspects such as mobile reporting, content production, radio hosting and the global principles on freedom of expression and digital rights. Following the training sessions, young indigenous reporters will establish five dedicated Facebook pages, each presenting information in a unique indigenous language.

INDIGENOUS ACADEMY noted that the young digital reporters will be tasked with publishing weekly content in their respective indigenous languages, ensuring a consistent flow of information and engagement with their communities.

It added that their online work will create a space to generate discussions among their communities on matters that are important to them. Finally, the young indigenous journalists will share content with a strong awareness-raising component that helps them to better understand media information and their civil rights in a more positive and critically thoughtful way.

INDIGENOUS ACADEMY partners with Indigenous media producers who are amplifying Indigenous voices on issues that matter to their communities. Radio’s universal and free nature and its ability to access many remote communities makes it a key medium to reach Indigenous audiences. Indigenous-produced programming strengthens Indigenous Peoples’ capacity to claim their rights and enables access to essential information and broadcasting in Indigenous languages that ensures widespread understanding and cultural continuity.

Indigenous Community Media Fund

Providing opportunities for international Indigenous radio stations to strengthen their broadcast infrastructure and systems and provide training opportunities in journalism, broadcasting, audio editing, technical skills, and more to Indigenous community journalists and media producers around the world.

Indigenous Women’s Leadership in Media Trainings

Indigenous women’s voices matter. Cultural Survival’s trainings support Indigenous women’s leadership in radio by working to improve their radio operations through a series of workshops and exchanges. We train local volunteers in journalism, broadcasting, interviewing, recording, audio editing, and technical skills. Our workshops also focus on deepening the dialogue on intercultural gender issues, improving locution, script writing with inclusive language, and audio mastering to improve production quality.

Indigenous Community Radio Networks

Regional networks provide opportunities to empower Indigenous communities regionally to focus on common issues while supporting and strengthening their individual community efforts. Cultural Survival supports the development of regional networks to fortify the capacity of Indigenous media and provide training on important issues like gender equality and promoting women’s and youth voices.

Training & Indigenous Community Media Policy Advocacy

Close to two decades of experience in International Story Telling to learn the immediate needs and constraints of Indigenous media and has positioned us to respond in meaningful ways.

Indigenous Academy supports community journalistic programming and capacity building by providing technical and material assistance to increase internal community capacity and skills. We are planning to provide small grants to community media stations for equipment, trainings and staff support, organizing, and travel in response to the needs of our community partners around the globe. INDIGENOUS ACADEMY organizes regular trainings in America, Asia, Africa and Europe in journalism, production, broadcasting, and technical skills. We also work with Indigenous communities to secure rights and increase ownership and access to radio waves in their communities.

Indigenous Youth Fellowship

The Fellowship supports individuals and groups of youth in their efforts to build their media, audiovisual, journalism, and multi media broadcasting skills through trainings, community radio visits and exchanges, production, and conference attendance.

Communication plays a crucial role in empowering indigenous communities in development. Indigenous communication systems, such as local communication networks and channels, are familiar and effective for these communities in terms of understanding, acceptance, and trust.

By fully utilizing indigenous language media, communities can be informed and mobilized for participation in development programs, leading to greater contributions to the growth of their communities.

Indigenous communication modes, such as drama, dance, and storytelling, have credibility and are readily intelligible to rural populations, making them more accessible than modern media. Indigenous communication allows for local participation in development efforts, enabling communities to communicate among themselves and with development professionals using familiar forms.

Additionally, project-based communication approaches, which involve collaborative participation and reflection, can lead to transformative actions and support the development process in indigenous communities.

Making Native Voices Heard

Indigenous media has always served as a platform to empower Indigenous voices. “Tribal media is the glue that is so vital to the freedoms that we enjoy. For tribal communities, it’s really about how we support everything that’s important to us,” Marco says. “It’s about our water and land rights. It’s about our right to be who we are. It’s about our right to practice our culture, and it’s really about the right to own our own identity.”

Filling the Gap

These INDIGENOUS media outlets report the stories of vital interest to Indigenous communities that mainstream media outlets are often unable or unwilling to cover. Many mainstream media outlets lack the personnel to report in remote locations or they may not understand the cultural, societal and economic realities of Indigenous life.

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear, a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in central North Dakota, founded the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance and its blog, Buffalo’s Fire. She advocates for more robust Indigenous news sources because she says mainstream reporting is insufficient. “We’re really not on their radar,” she says. “We had tribal elections about a year or so ago and it was an important election for a new chairman of our tribe. I called the Bismarck Tribune and talked to an editor there and asked if they were going to do any news reporting of our election, and they said no because they didn’t have a reporter in the area anymore.”

Compton has felt the harm inflicted by the invisibility of Indigenous stories in mainstream media, even stories worthy of national attention. In 2000, when she first started working at the APTN television station, she covered a little-known story about the Canadian military removing sun dancers from their dancing grounds on unceded territory that had become a farmer’s ranch. “I come from a sun dancing family. I couldn’t believe that the Canadian government sent the military in to remove sun dancers doing their traditional ceremony,” she says. “Why did it take for my people to have their own network for me to hear about that? That goes straight to the heart of why I feel so passionately about Indigenous media.”

Even well-intentioned mainstream journalists may lack the context and perspective necessary to tell Indigenous stories with nuance and authenticity. Or worse, such media coverage can careen into sensationalism, reinforcing stereotypes about Indigenous identity. These shortcomings in mainstream reporting are so persistent that NAJA has released a series of reporting guides to help inexperienced or non-Indigenous journalists. “The guides are designed to help non-Indigenous journalists navigate areas that they are completely uninformed about,” says NAJA President Tristan Ahtone, “areas that are likely shaded by bias, pop culture and lingering colonial ideas about Indigenous ‘plight.’”

On the other hand, INDIGENOUS ACADEMY says, Indigenous journalists carry a perspective that enhances and balances coverage: “We are the experts that connect to our people, and we know how to talk to our people in our communities. We know how to fairly represent them,” she says. “We have life experiences that relate to the stories that we are covering. We bring that experience to our roles as journalists; that gives the story a different voice. Indigenous media is giving voice to people who have never had much of a voice in the last few hundred years.”

Challenges from Within

Underrepresentation of Indigenous stories in mainstream media may be exacerbated by a disempowerment of Indigenous media from within. Despite the need for vigorous Indigenous news operations, many outlets may not have the resources or freedom to report fully on issues that concern their audiences.

When asked to rank the greatest threat to Indigenous media, more than half of respondents identified budgetary constraints and lack of financial resources as a top threat. Although many Indigenous publications have gone to digital-only formats to save printing and distribution costs, many Indigenous newspapers are still also available in print to serve their residents who prefer that format or may not have quality internet access. Many of these publications rely on funding from their tribal government because revenue from subscriptions and local advertising is limited.

Another challenge for Indigenous media is maintaining independence in what is often a small community with strong tribal government influence, conditions that can hamper the basic journalistic practice of maintaining objectivity. Nearly a quarter of Indigenous media producers who responded stated that stories about tribal affairs or officials went unreported due to censorship all or most of the time. Nearly a third say that prior approval of stories by government officials was required all or most of the time.

These obstacles lead to a narrowed scope of information reaching its intended audiences. Nearly a quarter of the readers, listeners and viewers of Indigenous media responded that their Indigenous media outlets only sometimes or never reflected the range of opinions and concerns of tribal citizens. Ten percent of this group also reported that tribal citizens never have adequate information about tribal affairs.

“We need more transparency mechanisms in place so our readers know what is happening with their tribal media,” says Marco Alpeggiani. “Who owns the tribal newspaper? How much funding comes from the tribal government? How often is the tribal council or some other governmental body shaping what goes into the newspaper or not? I think it’s imperative that our readers know the extent of control the tribal government has in filtering the news.”

Marco Alpeggiani says that to properly fulfill their roles as truth-tellers, Indigenous media must have full access to leadership and be shielded from political influence. “We need to create a legal framework to protect our tribal media operations for them to be able to do their work as if they were independent,” she says. “This would require the tribes to buy into that idea, and there needs to be no strings attached to funding.”

Media for the People

When Indigenous media is supported to operate independently, then it is more than just a conveyor of information. It is an engaged partner, serving its community and its audience with depth, clarity and perspective. When Indigenous people see and hear their authentic representation in media, it empowers their voice and reinforces their Indigenous identities.

Without Indigenous media, Native people and their issues would be near invisible in the mainstream culture and tribal governments would be less able to sustain their self- determination, or the freedom to define themselves. The role of Indigenous media, she says, is to “have control over what the narratives are about our own people. If you are not in control, if you don’t have media control and ownership, somebody else is going to have that power. It’s a huge power that we don’t often acknowledge. It’s vital, it’s pivotal and it affects everything.”

However, true self-determination may be more difficult to attain if tribal media outlets are unable to fulfill their full potential. James R. Mountain, the former governor of San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico and now owner of the community’s newspaper, the Valley Daily Post, asserts that the key for Native media to succeed is for it to connect to its cultural roots. “We must be true to our way —‘Naa in-bee Towa Koo paadeh peh,’ our Indian way comes first. Those are the gifts that were given to us by our creator. Be true to that. We must put that first, as part of our principles as tribal media outlets,” Mountain says. “This is one way, and it’s a very powerful way.”