Indigenous Screen Cultures in Canada

Who has the power to narrate and the power to suppress indigenous narratives? Are indigenous media representations themselves appropriate? What is the role of indigenous media in striking a balance between external interests and local constituencies?Indigenous Screen Cultures in Canada explores these key questions and undertakes a critical examination of the history and role of indigenous media organizations, content, and audiences in Canada and their growing importance in domestic and global movements for information democracy. Drawing upon work in anthropology, sociology, media studies, and Native studies, the book investigates the political economy of contemporary indigenous television, film, and cyber production. Focussing primarily on Aboriginal television and the first ten years of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, the authors also examine indigenous language broadcasting in radio and film; Aboriginal journalism practices; audience creation within and beyond indigenous communities; the roles of program scheduling and content acquisition policies in the decolonization process; the roles of digital video technologies and co-production agreements in indigenous filmmaking; and the emergence of Aboriginal cyber-communities. Each chapter provides concrete examples of how mass media permits increasing cultural and social agency among indigenous groups and how Aboriginal producers conceive of traditional knowledge, language, and practices as vehicles of modern culture.

Sigurjn Baldur Hafsteinsson is assistant professor in the Department of Museology, University of Iceland. He has a doctoral degree in cultural anthropology from Temple University in Philadelphia. Marian Bredin is associate professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film, and Director of the Centre for Canadian Studies at Brock University. She is a member of the Popular Culture Niagara Research project and a contributor to Covering Niagara: Studies in Local Popular Culture.