title: Yarning with networked media technologies: Mediatisation and the emergence of the First Australians' cyber-corroboree
Creators: name: Robinson, Keith C
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: First Australian cultures
subject: societies
subject: mediatisation
subject: preservation
subject: traditional First Australian values
subject: self-reflexive

description: Mediatisation is a people-centred and process-oriented theory (Krotz 2009) concerned with the various media involved in the communicative construction of socio-cultural reality (Couldry &amp; Hepp 2018). It underpins the frameworks that discuss how media shapes and conditions the emergent processes and transformations of social and cultural change, and in turn how these influence changes in contemporary media. In short, mediatisation theory examines the effects of media on humankind. To date, much mediatisation research has been informed by Western ontological and epistemological metrics. While satisfactory for mainstream cultures, it can potentially limit scholars wishing to study the often-marginalised spaces surrounding traditional Indigenous cultures, who have a collective worldview (Foley 2003). Moreover, little if any mediatisation theory has been applied to many of these traditionally oral/aural based cultures. Yet, these ancient cultures are arguably under the greatest threat of being assimilated into Australia’s majority culture because of the mediatisation processes and the technological transformations afforded by networked media technologies (NMTs). My research examines the effects of mediatisation on First Australian cultures and societies. It aims to discover which aspects of mediatisation condition but do not determine how contemporary First Australians engage with traditional Indigenous cultures and how Indigenous cultures in turn engage with the processes of mediatisation. By studying these dialectical relationships, I have sought to learn the nature and extent to which mediatisation processes are influencing First Australian cultures by determining what aspects can be either beneficial and/or detrimental to the preservation, maintenance and promotion of traditional First Australian values. In addition, I have sought to determine whether NMTs help or hinder the formulation of First Australians’ sense of agency, empowerment and their self-reflexive identity. Due to participation reticence, researching First Australian affairs can be problematic. This tendency towards reservedness is borne from past experiences of colonial attitudes which invariably conducted studies on the People rather than with the People. My study employed a collaborative methodology mindful of the First Australian ontological premise that culturally appropriate research should always incorporate, whenever possible, Indigenous epistemology. As such, I chose to follow three aspects of Indigenous knowledge as described by Dr Karen Martin, a Minjerriba Noonuccal woman, as ‘The ways of knowing, ways of doing and the ways of being’ (Martin 2008, p. 75). To this end, while collecting much of my data, I used the First Australian methodology known as ‘yarning’. The use of yarning as a means of data collection reflects the collaborative nature of my research by producing the types of postcolonial research strategies befitting of postgraduate research in twenty-first-century Australia. More importantly, it produces research that is both meaningful and relevant to First Australians, since many of the findings emerged from yarns with a diverse range of the original custodians of this land. I considered my collaborative yarning approach and the new ways First Australians were communicating with each other in the complex, emergent spaces of communications as largely synonymous; I chose to call this emergent process the beginning of a cyber-corroboree. Several key findings suggest that First Australians are quick to adopt and adapt many NMT platforms. Indeed, in many instances the uptake of these technologies surpasses mainstream Australian engagement. Often, the applications in question were developed through technical structures that were underpinned by the familiar aural/oral characteristics of traditional First Australian cultures. This may explain their initial popularity among First Australian users, but it does not account for their many unintended yet innovative uses. Much of this modernisation is borne of First Australians using ground-breaking techniques to preserve, maintain and promote many aspects of their respective culture and society. Additionally, the data suggests that NMTs within First Australian communities simultaneously help and hinder social cohesion. This polarisation and the associated speed and scale of networked media proliferation among First Australian individuals and extended families has created a paradox. In a computerised world where media saturation is commonplace, tech behemoths such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Alibaba and Facebook (AMAGAF) pay scant regard to self-regulation in their pursuit of profits. Consequently, users are subliminally being assimilated while attempting to maintain their unique identity. Indeed, as AMAGAF is continuously monetising their users’ data, many First Australians who are using ‘free’ computerised products are unwittingly themselves becoming the product. This apparent lack of control and the disregard of cultural protocols by online First Australian users is arguably of greatest concern. Yet, the extent of the damage this is causing to cultural traditions is the most unknown aspect of the processes of mediatisation. This existential threat therefore requires urgent attention. My research is a first step in remedying this recognised lacuna in the current body of knowledge.