Moving Forward Together is a toolkit/handbook developed by the First Nations Health Council Communications Advisory Committee Members. The toolkit provides support to First Nation communities in their communications efforts by providing practical advice and tools proven to work at the grassroots level. Although the handbook offers a lot of interesting insight and information which can be leveraged by First Nations groups concerned with improving communications between and amongst communities, the toolkit also contains four case studies which revealed some unanticipated, authentic challenges faced by First Nations groups in building an online presence and following.
Tag Archives: Social Media
Module 3 – Post 5: Social Media Planning in a Comprehensive Community Planning Handbook
This is a handbook prepared by a community of Canadian First Nations groups that outlines some of the lessons they learned through their experiences community planning and offers information regarding “best practices” to strengthen future implementation. The handbook includes a section about social media’s role in fostering communication and networking amongst groups, and offers an interesting insight into the value that is inherent in a “from the ground-up” approach to ensure the success of community planning within indigenous communities.
Module 3 – Post 2: Emergent Indigenous Identities and Social Media
Carlson, B. (2013). The ‘new frontier’: Emergent Indigenous identities and social media. In M. Harris, M. Nakata & B. Carlson (Eds.), The Politics of Identity: Emerging Indigeneity (pp. 147-168). Sydney: University of Technology Sydney E-Press
This article, while focusing on Indigenous populations in Australia, provides for some interesting insight as to how social media has given rise to significant cultural and social interaction among Aboriginal people and groups. By way of a content analysis, this article contends that popular social media sites, like Facebook, are becoming popular vehicles amongst Aboriginal people, to build, display, and perform Aboriginal identities. Likewise, Aboriginal users take advantages of Facebook as a site for self-representation and as a tool to communicate their Aboriginal identity to other social media users in online communities.
Module 2 – Post 5: Indigenous Women’s Use of YouTube
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/559
This is another report on a related topic to to my previous on Digital Storytelling and YouTube. In this report, Sonja Perley analyzes the representation and participation of First Nations women in online videos. It examines several YouTube videos created by First Nations women as well as two First Nation websites in order to assert claims that as it becomes increasingly easy to create and upload videos, there are new opportunities for First Nation women to represent their perspectives, to challenge mainstream representations of First Nations peoples and issues, and to promote social change.
Module 2 – Post 4: Using Online Strategies for Preserving Aboriginal Languages
I’ve been having a difficult time finding much academic writing about social media use by indigenous communities, but I discovered a dissertation by a student at the University of Washington that explores the impact of social media on indigenous language in the northern Quebec community of Inukjuaq. The doctoral thesis investigates Inuit language preferences on an English‐interface social network and examines the conflicting attitudes of youth and elders toward the linguistic consequences of engaging with such a powerful online influence. (You may need to sign in through UBC’s Library CWL in order to access the link…)
Module 2 – Post 3 Indigenous Digital Storytelling On YouTube
http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1003966ar
The above article focuses on how contemporary Inuit youth are using video-sharing sites like Youtube to post short excerpts from their lives and connect with others. The article asserts that the videos they share fit with conceptions of indigenous storytelling, showing that Internet technology enables indigenous users the freedom to bypass established rules and institutions of cultural representation. It is argued that these self-produced videos are more authentic expressions of indigenous selfhood than those texts that may have circulated in the past. As such, this article seems to suggest that Indigenous youth and young adults use video-sharing technology to creatively mediate pasts, presents, and futures in the creation of new social worlds.
Module 2 – Post 2: First Nation Use of MyKnet.org
The following link is to a 2009 report titled MyKnet.org: How Northern Ontario’s First Nation communities made themselves at home on the World Wide Web by Phillip Budka, Brandi Bell, and Adam Fiser. The report examines the findings of an online survey of more than a thousand MyK‐Net (a loosely structured system of personal homepages that was established by indigenous communities) users, which revealed that subscribers considered MyKNet.org to be their most important communication medium, over telephone, television and community radio. It identifies the tremendously high level of participation by First Nations individuals on various social media forums and illustrates the proclivity of some First Nations people for this kind of connectivity.
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/568
Module 2 – Post 1: Social Media as a Tool for Inclusion
http://www.homelesshub.ca/ResourceFiles/Taylor_Social%20Media_feb2011%20(1)_1_2.pdf
This is a report of the findings of research commissioned by Human Resources and Skill Development Canada. The study sought to determine the extent, nature and benefits of social media use by vulnerable populations – Aboriginal peoples being one of those populations — and by the institutions that serve them, and to explore the extent to which such media help to overcome social isolation and barriers to inclusion in Canadian society. The report suggests that First Nations and Inuit peoples have embraced social media to keep in touch with their communities, fight addiction, showcase Aboriginal arts and crafts, preserve cultural identity and support political advocacy.
Module 1- Post 3: Community Resilience Through Social Media Use
Ever since I stumbled on the Idle No More movement, I’ve become really interested in social media use by Indigenous people. Of course, social media is a platform widely used in order to find an audience for airing grievances, but with social media’s capacity for connecting and mobilizing groups, I sought out examples of how Indigenous groups were using this to their advantage. I came across a study, Research in Brief: Social Media in Remote First Nations Communities, that explores the link between social media and community resilience among some of the most remote First Nation communities in Canada. The study goes in to quite a bit of depth about the the links between travel and communication online, the ways in which social media are used to preserve culture and maintain communication, and the implications of social networking for community resilience.
Module 1 Post 4 – Tumblr: “Aboriginal Space”
Doing just a quick google search I found a tumblr (that seems to be dead, the last post was 2 years ago) that was collecting online resources and stories about Indigenous communities in digital spaces. Some of the posts are about apps in development, some are links to websites or projects, and some are resources directly provided in the blog (such as videos). Although it’s not active, I will be browsing through it as a starting place for my inquiry, as one potential direction I’m considering for my research is the ‘re-indigenization’ of digital space (or the possibility of it).
Online link: Aboriginal Space