Internet Media and Tribal Sovereignty: Some Thoughts on Rapidly Changing Perceptions

Abstract

In today’s mass media environment, rapid technological, social and political change has driven people of all cultures to wonder whether the communications media we rely upon for accurate, accountable information can remain the basis for political action. The generations-long development of First Amendment guarantees seem almost meaningless in a global mass media environment where truth itself is no longer the guiding principle of journalistic and social development. In internet media, especially, prevailing commercial interests seem to co-opt values of truth and honesty as information is manipulated to meet priorities based upon data-gathering and analytical algorithms so easily captured by digital extraction. Can today’s indigenous peoples in the US and elsewhere find a way to assure that media policies include their desires for self-government and decolonization? This author will attempt to help formulate options indigenous people can consider as cyber communications values continue to develop under the current regime of surveillance capitalism.