From: speights@iear.arts.rpi.edu (Arlen Speights)
Subject: Deep Dish TV and Video
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 01:54:33 GMT

beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!tamvm1.tamu.edu!HWS.bitnet!HWS1!MIHALYI writes:

>programs on TV.  Yes, if I look to television's situation comedies and such for
>an explanation of the world, I am in trouble.  But there are other programs on
>TV that real people involved in real situations produce to INFORM others, not
>PROGRAM others.  Patrick Maun talks about public access channels.  On our
>cable, we now get Finger Lakes TV, a public access channel which carries
>something called Deep Dish TV (what is that, Patrick?).  One program was about
>the Hopi and Navajo produced by the Hopi, I believe.  That program was far
>better than anything done on PBS.  Another example: WXXI TV in Rochester NY

Deep Dish TV is a group that uplinks community-oriented videos to the
satellites that most cable TV companies get their programming from.  Most
local cable companies can simply tape the programs and broadcast them on
their local-access channels, which are specifically for the local area's
use.  Their idea is to provide a way for communities to learn from other
communities' experiences via the videos they produce, and to make their
own videos.  The videos they uplink are usually grassroots oriented; they
recently ran a series on indigenous peoples made by mainly indigenous
producers.  They'll accept videos with a wide range of production "quality;"
usually the tapes are made at local Video Access Centers, like 911 in
Seattle or Appalshop in Kentucky, who provide equipment and assistance to
producers.  The great thing about them is that almost anyone can get their
local cable company to show Deep Dish, it's something about FCC rules
for local access programming.  Usually an organization can force the
cable company to get Deep Dish.

You can call or write Deep Dish and get their program guide, which
lists the programs and the date/time/channel info for the the cable
company:
	Deep Dish TV Network
	339 Lafayette Street
	New York, NY 10012

	(212)478-8933

They're really good people; they'll help you get the programming as well
as help you contact video access centers where you can make your own
videos for TV.

This sort of activity and idea--empowerment over TV by debunking the myth
of control over its programming--has grown a lot in the past few years,
and some tribes have begun to use TV to further their aims, which are of
course as diverse within the tribe as without.  There is as Innuit Broad-
casting Service in Canada which makes its own programming; of course the
presence of an agenda is still present but the introduction of a tribal
sovereignty through the TV programming is an important one.

Dependence on European institutions for the means to make TV is important
as well--but I think that it is an equitable transaction; like dependence
on European trade for Chzekoslovakian glass beads.  New technology nearly
destroyed the traditional ways of adorning and addressing life, but some
tribes were able to sustain themselves a seperation from Euro-American
lifestyle in spite of a new economic dependence.  Like the introduction
of the bow and arrow, TV is an inevitable change in the lives of the
indigenous peoples, and like the bow and arrow, the technology must be
overcome not by denying it or refusing it, but by enveloping it,
by integrating it into what sustainable ideology remains in the tribes.
Using a local video access center to produce programs for the tribes is
a new dependence on Euro-American institutions but an important control
over television, over the devastating ethnic image-making on TV.

Over the holidays I spent time with my tribe in South Louisiana, and 
talked to an uncle who was surprised to see that many of the Tunica
people looked like the Houma Indians and were facing some of the same
problems in the community.  For a tribe that feels incredibly isolated
and helpless down on the bayou, knowing that others in the South or
on the hemisphere are real people and are asserting their identity, it
could mean the survival of my tribe, many of whom feel only the hatred
and ostracism of not looking or acting like the popular images of
Euro-Americans protrayed on TV and in films, even "Indians" like Daniel
Day-Lewis and Val Kilmer.  And by seeing that broadcast TV is run by
a destructive and conquering agenda, Indians might weaken the existing
dependence on Euro-American media sources.

Arlen
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"Even now, we scarcely feel our hearts beat before they break in protest"
                                                         -Stanley Diamond
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