YouTube Indians is a collaborative research project based around a wiki structure which you will construct using the a Wiki structure. YouTube contains a wealth of material and images about American Indians ranging from the patently stereotypic and poorly presented to high quality examples of self-representation. We will start on the project early in the semester. Groups will be structured with one of the graduate students coordinating each group (5-7 people), analyzing Indian materials on YouTube according to categories assigned in class.
This collaborative project about Native American representation
is worth up to 150
points. You will produce a
team product by contributing to a class wiki on You Tube Indians, you will
participate in class progress and final presentation, and you will turn in an
individual* brief (10 or so pages)
report about your segment of the project and your personal observations
on how Indians get represented on YouTube and the Web generally. You will
choose or be assigned a theme, and there will be 4-5 people in each project
group, which will be coordinated by one of the graduate students. We will set
up groups after class enrollment stabilizes, about 3 weeks into the class.
You will be
assigned up to 100 points based on the quality of your activity, which includes
assessment of both your contribution to the collaborative effort ( up to 50 given to your group for the product and
presentations by the professor, 50 points for participation [30 points from the
grad student supervisor and 20 from group peers]) and approximately 50 points
for the content of your final report (assigned by the professor). To
summarize the breakdown of points: 1) 50 points given to your group by
the instructor for the group product and for the progress and final
presentations, 2) 30 points from graduate student supervisor for your
participation, 3) 20 points from other group members, 4) 50 points for your
individual* report on the project = 150 total points.
*You may do a final
report with other team members, but the report should show the effort of more
than one person, that is, it probably will be longer than the 10 pages—but not
necessarily double—and have a larger variety of content. Jointly authored reports will receive the
same score. Part of the collaborative
effort will be regular oral progress reports and a final report to the entire
class.
In Wiping the Warpaint Off the Lens, Beverly Singer(2001:2) states that for American Indian people, "What really matters to us is that we be able to tell our own stories in whatever form we choose." The ability to do so is changing slowly in the realm of feature films, largely due to limited access to the funds necessary to produce them, relatively few Indian people trained in motion picture production, and demands that films make profits. Digital technology, however, is redefining agency in video production, allowing anyone with a digital camcorder and inexpensive editing software to produce quality short videos. Distribution is also changing, especially with an expanding availability of broadband internet services. Indian people are increasingly able to tell their own stories directly, without non-Indian intermediaries who inevitably skew perceptions of audiences.
American Indian people have been quick to adapt locally produced, Internet-distributed video to their use to tell their own stories, echoing their pioneering use of the Internet to establish and to maintain ethnic boundaries (Zimmerman, Bruguier, and Zimmerman 2000). In particular, the subject of this paper is the use of Web sites such as YouTube and Yahoo Videos, which have been core elements in this process, and rapidly are becoming a mainstream communication medium, especially for younger audiences. As with materials on the Internet, there have been nagging issues. YouTube and other video postings raise several questions concerning Native American representation in film and mainstream media (if Youtube actually is considered mainstream, which is problematic). What is being posted? In what form? By Whom? And Why? Who is commenting on these films, and who is the target audience?
The purpose of this project is to explore answers to these questions, looking especially at several short feature films, native acted, directed, and produced which are available on YouTube. One example is Osama Likes Frybread ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3w7vAmszm4 or click on above in YouTube box), a video with high production values that uses the concept and structures of the cartoon Pinky and the Brain for political commentary concerning the War on Terror, U.S. federal Indian policy, reservation life, and tribal politics. But this it is only one type of YouTube video. For the project we will consider videos with lower production values, such as unnarrated documentation of hand-game tournaments and powwow contest dancing, stand-up comedy routines, public service announcements such as the Sacred Smoke project, many with an Indian voice at the center, which actually comprise vast amount of video representation on YouTube.
YouTube allows viewer comments that can contain important information about the perceptions of the viewer, but can also provide a venue for continued communication or clarification. Rivalries of the powwow arena and hand-game tournaments can continue outside the arena, for example, via "trash talk" between participants and their family members. The chatroom-like element stimulates further questions; comments offer a public forum where native and non-natives alike can comment on the representations portrayed, can critique not only the videos, but each others’ comments and critiques. Finally, we will consider whether YouTube’s expanded representations have the potential to break-down age-old stereotypes or to perpetuate them. What are the impacts of these Indian-produced representations on non-Indian people? At the same time that YouTube has expanded Indian voice, it is also saturated with Hollywood and TV stereotypic images of native people. In what ways do these native and non-native representations intersect and speak to and against each other?
This will be the second time YouTube Indians has been analyzed in this class, and Dr. Kelly Branam (St. Cloud State University) and I presented a paper in on it at a 2008 Symposium: The Indigenous Voice in Film at Michigan State University. That paper has now been accepted, pending some revisions, by the journal American Indian Quarterly (read a draft of it if you like). Kelly and I have had students in our classes examine the subject to provide a comparative basis for students who attend university very near several reservations (St. Cloud) and those who attend university in a state with a relatively small Indian population (IUPUI). We thank you for your participation, and will certainly credit any student who willingly contributes more than the minimum expected for the class project. Beyond our research, we feel that you will gain a great deal from the project related to stereotype creation, as well as the increasing level of Indian voice, especially in "telling their own story."
Sources:
Singer, Beverly R.
2001Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and
Video. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota
Press.
Zimmerman, Larry J., Leonard Bruguier
and Karen Zimmerman
2000 Cyberspace Smoke Signals: New Technologies and Native American Ethnicity.
In, C. Smith and G. Ward, (eds.) Indigenous Cultures in an Interconnected
World. St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. pp. 69-88.
How it will work
The class is divided into six groups as shown in the table below. At the top of each column is the name of the coordinator for each group, one of the graduate students in the class. Their task is to serve a coordinators for their group, to work with you in developing an approach your group will take to the project, "nudging" you about the work, and helping you prepare wiki entries and the final presentation.
To start:
1. Either today or the next class period, meet your grad supervisor.
2. Look over the Wiki structure (TBA), play with it and find out how to use it.
3. I will set up a forum for each group on OnCourse to exchange ideas.
4. When you are comfortable enough to do wiki entries, feel free to start.
5. Plan on giving a brief presentation on progress about every two weeks as noted on the schedule.
You may add entries anywhere on the wiki, and do note that I will know who modifies a page or entry.
This will take a bit of getting used to, so feel free to play with it. What kind of entries? I'll leave it up to you. You may wish to discuss a single video or group of them and their commentaries. Make reference to readings or other materials as needed. I expect questions, so feel free to ask them.
|
Topic: |
Topic:
|
Topic: |
|
Topic: |
Topic: |
Topic: |