Bridging the gaps: towards a history of Indigenous media in Australia

Abstract

Australia has a long history of mainstream media misrepresentation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people. Frameworks for thinking about Indigenous people were set during the early period of colonization and have remained trapped there for more than 200 years. Contemporary media coverage of Indigenous affairs has shifted and does include some positive images, and sometimes provides important contextual information for audiences who use media as their sole source of information about such issues. But overall, the tenor remains one which de” nes Indigenous people as problems [1]. Indigenous responses to this often hostile environment have manifested themselves in many diverse forms, varying from a search for control over access to Indigenous lands to the establishment of systems of knowledge and intellectual property management based on traditional structures [2]. Indigenous communities have appropriated a variety of technological means in this quest. We offer a brief history of the emergence of the Indigenous media sector in Australia and begin with a salutary note—despite a media history that extends back more than 160 years, there was no formal mainstream acknowledgement of the existence of an Indigenous media sector in Australia until 2000.