Media.Knet.Ca

The team at Keewaytinook Okimakanak is working with a number of researchers to produce papers and publications that support the further development of broadband infrastructure and applications in remote and rural communities across Canada. The following list of activities and partners highlight the extent of this work ...

Dr. Susan O'Donnell, Videocom research lead, Senior Research Officer, Institute for Information Technology, National Research Council and Adjunct Professor, University of New Brunswick

The VideoCom research project (http://videocom.knet.ca) started in September 2006. The research is investigating video communications on broadband in First Nations communities, looking specifically at the social inclusion and citizen engagement aspects.

Recent Activities ...

Paper - Challenges for Video Communications in Remote and Rural Communities

Reference: O’Donnell, S., Perley, S., and Simms, D. (2008) Challenges for Video Communications in Remote and Rural Communities. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (IEEE ISTAS 08 - http://istas08.ca). Fredericton, June 26-28, 2008.

Abstract: For Canada's remote and rural communities, video communications provide a vital lifeline. This study explores the challenges for video communications in remote and rural First Nation (Indigenous) communities. Central to our analysis are social and technical issues as well as the ICT experiences of community-based organizations and community members. We use an analytical framework to identify challenges in four categories: technical infrastructure, the interactions of the users with the technical infrastructure, the production and reception of audio-visual content, and the organizational and social relations. Our findings underline the need for community capacity building to address these challenges and use video communications to its full potential.

Past activities can be viewed online at the Videocom website at http://videocom.knet.ca

A paper is being produced for the upcoming CIRN gathering in Prato, Italy taking place in the fall.

Title: Videoconferencing and Sustainable Development for Remote and Rural First Nations in Canada

Abstract: Videoconferencing can be used to connect remote and rural First Nation communities to work together on sustainable development priorities. This paper presents two case studies of videoconferencing events. In both cases, a real-time high-bandwidth connection provided rich visual and audio data to be exchanged among communities separated by vast distances. The host communities for these videoconference events are small First Nations with traditional lifestyles connected to the land. Despite their remoteness and traditional cultures, these communities have the capacity to use advanced high-bandwidth technologies in innovative ways to contribute to sustainable development of their communities.

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Philipp Budka, doctoral candidate at the University of Vienna, Austria

From Philipp's web site at http://www.philbu.net: a social anthropologist interested in media, technologies, identity construction, social networks, community concepts, production and transfer of knowledge, learning and teaching, ethnographic methods, and football culture. He is currently doing work in a variety of fields such as Northwestern Ontario, Canada, several internet environments, and the University of Vienna, Austria.

Recent Activities and Research updates on his doctoral theses work ...

April 11, 2008 at the "4th Days of Social and Cultural Anthropology" conference at the University of Vienna. The paper is written in German and is called

"Popular cultures in a First Nation internet environment: Hip Hop as element of youth identity construction and representation".

Philipp is currently working on four other papers, which are uploaded to the MyKnet.org Meeting Space at http://meeting.knet.ca/moodle/course/view.php?id=51 when they are produced.

1) "The new mediation of traumatic experiences: the First Nations online environment MyKnet.org and suicides in Northern Ontario." Chapter in an edited volume about "Sites/Cites of Trauma". (Currently delayed - I am waiting for the editors notes on schedule for publishing).

The first version of this paper is available on Philipp's meeting space at the address above. This paper was presented at the SITES/CITES OF TRAUMA, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden, Oct. 5-6 2007.

2) Extended version of the online survey report for the online Community Informatics Journal as report from the field (planned to submit  during the summer).

3) Paper at the EASA Conference called "Indigenous media technology production in Northern Ontario, Canada" (ready middle of August)

European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) - 10th EASA conference
Experiencing Diversity and Mutuality
Ljubljana, Slovenia
August 26 - 29, 2008
http://www.easa2008.eu/

Abstract: This paper aims on the one hand to review anthropological literature about indigenous media production and on the other to introduce and discuss two case studies of First Nation media technology production in the geographical and cultural contexts of Northern Ontario, Canada. In both cases indigenous organizations have been taking initiative to produce and distribute their own media services.

The Wawatay Native Communication Society, established in the 1970s, provides the First Nation communities of the region, which is called the Nishnawbe Aski by its Ojibwe, Oji-Cree and Cree speaking indigenous inhabitants, with newspapers, radio and TV programs as well as online news.

The Kuhkenah Network (K-Net), which was founded by the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council in the 1990s, is an indigenous broadband internet program offering services, such as telehealth, videoconferencing, online learning, and free personal e-mail and homepages. By concentrating on the actual situations and life worlds of First Nation people in Northern Ontario, both media producers have developed culturally and linguistically appropriate alternatives to mainstream mass media.

Through ethnographic fieldwork in the Nishnawbe Aski, this paper intends to contribute to the understanding of the history, the challenges and the possible future of indigenous media technology production in this part of the world. How are these media producers interconnected? Which similarities and which differences can be identified? What role does local/regional media technology production plays in the transnational media landscape?

http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa08/panels.php5?PanelID=307

4) Paper at the AoIR Conference entitled "Indigenous territories on the World Wide Web: How First Nation people in Northwestern Ontario establish social networks and communities online" (ready middle of October)

Association of Internet Researchers
AoIR 9.0: Rethinking Communities, Rethinking Place
http://conferences.aoir.org/
October 16 – 18 2008
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract: This paper discusses how different concepts of online sociality can be applied to the analysis of an indigenous environment on the World Wide Web. In doing so, it focuses on the meaning of the Internet and this particular online service for First Nation people in Northwestern Ontario, Canada. How do these people make a home on the WWW? What does a dedicated online social environment mean to First Nation people in the contexts of their everyday life? And how does a locally based and supported online service interact with the global Internet? The paper utilizes qualitative empirical data gathered within ethnographic fieldwork in First Nation communities and quantitative data collected through an online survey as well as social networking and mapping analyses.

Howard Rheingold's The Virtual Community (1993) was the first widely publicized book about the ability of Internet media to create communities online. In a revised edition of the volume in 2000, Rheingold (2000: 359) concluded that if he had learned about social networks sooner, he would have used this concept to describe "cyberspace cultures". He refers in particular to the work of Barry Wellman who has written extensively about social networks in relation to Internet media (e.g. Wellman 1997, 2001, Wellman & Gulia 1999, Wellman et al. 2002). Wellman, together with other sociologists like Manuel Castells, (2000) agues that communities and societies have been moving toward "networked individualism" (Wellman et al. 2002). In these networked societies, "computer networks and social networks resonate with one another" (ibid:
160). Is "community", therefore, a fitting concept to understand what people are doing on the Internet? Together with Baym (1998) and Smith and Kollock (1999) this paper agues that community concepts provide excellent frameworks to understand the motivation of people to get together on the Internet to create social networks.

It is evident, however, that these societal concepts must be discussed within the context of Internet media technologies.

John Postill (2008) provides an alternative way of understanding online socialities by moving "beyond the community/network paradigm by broadening our analytical lexicon". He argues that the field theories developed by Pierre Bourdieu and the Manchester School of social anthropology are well suited to frame social (inter)action on the Internet.

How can "community", "network" or "social field" be deployed to understand the meaning of a First Nation online environment?

In 2000 the Internet service provider K-Net of the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council introduced MyKnet.org (www.myknet.org), a system of personal homepages for First Nation people (Oji-Cree and Cree) living primarily in remote communities in Northwestern Ontario, Canada.

This free of charge, free of advertisements, locally-supported online environment grew in a region the size of France where many of the 25,000 community members have lived without adequate residential telecommunication services well into the millennium. In 2008 MyKnet.org hosts almost 30000 registered user accounts and homepages, signalling that First Nations in neighbouring Manitoba and the greater Northern Ontario region have started to use this service.

Results of an online survey indicate (Author 2008, N=1246) that MyKnet.org is used mainly by people younger than 25 years of age across all First Nation communities of Northwestern Ontario making it a primarily youth-driven social environment.

It has also become a community media technology, in that there are few people in the communities without a MyKnet.org homepage. This popularity results from the opportunities MyKnet.org provides people to represent themselves, their families and communities; to network along kinship lines and within peer groups; and to construct identities online, often by blending popular and traditional cultural elements (Author 2007).

MyKnet.org is predominantly used to keep in contact with family and friends. People in these fly-in communities have to leave their homes to attend high school, find a job or to be treated in a hospital. The vast majority of users, therefore, link their homepages to friends and family members. MyKnet.org has also become a hot topic for discussion among friends and family members at home and through the Internet.

First Nation culture is an important factor in creating content for MyKnet.org homepages. Thus, culture is being celebrated by sharing information about social activities such as hunting and fishing and family and community events. In addition, most or at least some of the content is related to families and communities. And although other social networking sites such as Facebook and Bebo are becoming popular, people keep their MyKnet.org homepages to stay in touch with family and friends and to access and exchange information about people and
communities: "It's First Nations, it belongs to us in Northern Ontario".

Landzelius (2006) refers to these "self-authored engagements" of indigenous peoples online as "indigenous cyberactivism" and distinguishes between "outreach" and "inreach" activities. MyKnet.org focuses more on indigenous inreach activities, which are oriented toward an internal public and include activities such as public services as well as personalized social networking practices.

MyKnet.org is also taking its place among other community media in Northwestern Ontario such as community radio (present in the region since the 1970s), but with a younger audience and user group. Like community radio, MyKnet.org is a locally-driven and locally-operated initiative and both provide access to individual community members to participate and make their voices heard.

The policy that requires MyKnet.org users to register accounts under their surname and given names allows the easy locating and access of individual homepages. Together with this policy, the uniqueness of surnames in Northwestern Ontario First Nations turns MyKnet.org into a dynamic map of kinship ties in the region. Thus, the correspondences between surnames, territories, and communities in MyKnet.org can be used to follow the movements of friends and family members across the region.

MyKnet.org also fulfills an important role in strengthening inter-community communication, civic action, and other interpersonal connections.

As a community-based medium, MyKnet.org provides an alternative to mainstream social network sites. The uniqueness of its user-pool, the kinship and community ties it represents, provides MyKnet.org with an advantage that competing commercial environments are not now able to meet. MyKnet.org users are intimately enveloped by the cultural experience of a computerization movement in the Northwestern Ontario First Nations such that there is more to MyKnet.org's appeal than simply communications (Author 2007). Many people say they identify MyKnet.org as part of their community experience, in contrast to other websites and online social environments that they use: "The (last) reason why I like MyKnet.org is because I know a lot of people on MyKnet... my fellow Indians."

MyKnet.org can thus be described as a First Nation community on the WWW, which is organized and structured through social networks and ties that resonate with kinships ties. MyKnet.org can also be situated in the field of indigenous media technology production, where different agents interact with each other. Finally, MyKnet.org has established a locally produced, controlled and owned territory for First Nation people on the global Internet.

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Adam Fiser, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto is doing his thesis work on the development and operation of the Kuhkenah Network. Adam is working with his faculty advisor Dr. Andrew Clement at the Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto. His contact information is adam.fiser@gmail.com,

Together they presented the following paper at the the IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (IEEE ISTAS 08 - http://istas08.ca). Fredericton, June 26-28, 2008.

Title: The K-Net Broadband Deployment Model: Enabling Canadian Aboriginal Community Control of Telecom Infrastructure Through Relationship Building and Heterogeneous Engineering

Abstract: This paper outlines a model for broadband community networking developed by the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Tribal Council of Northwestern Ontario. The model specifically addresses the telecom and information service needs of remote Aboriginal communities in telco high cost serving areas. It advances Aboriginal property rights and local control over infrastructure amidst (necessary) transactions with public and private firms for the deployment of network assets and overlying telecom and information services. Two organizational competences are postulated in this paper to help explain the development and operationalization of K-Net’s broadband deployment model. These are relationship building and heterogeneous engineering. This paper draws from research conducted under the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking.