Social media throws a vivid spotlight onto cultural diversity issues. It provides a forum for people that would not normally meet in “real” life to be able to share information and opinions – like-minded, or very much otherwise. In Australia, a lot of the most important cultural debates centre around race and the rights of First Australians. Chancellor et al. (2021) wrote of the importance of genuine, open dialogue when confronting racism. Social media is an excellent place for this to happen, but it is not without some major issues. It leaves Indigenous Australians open to abuse, while at the same time providing a forum “through which Indigenous people can resist the subjugating forces of colonialism and work towards new futures”(Wilson in Carlson & Frazer, 2018, p. 44) It also increases visibility for Indigenous issues worldwide, and complements more traditional forms of activism (Bennett & Segerberg 2012).
In July 2016, explicit footage of teenage Aboriginal boys being violently abused by staff at Darwin’s Don Dale Detention Centre aired on ABC’s Four Corners. The reaction on social media was swift, and emotional. For many Indigenous Australians, it was a reminder of colonial violence. The “various manifestations of pain (were) both visceral and palpable” (Carlson et al., 2017, p. 10), and continued as the footage was repeatedly reshown over the following weeks.
A less constructive, and more tone deaf, response was a cartoon that was published in the immediate wake of the airing of the Don Dale footage.
Indigenous LBGTQI advocate Dameyon Bonson, said he felt “gut punched” by the cartoon. Journalist Allan Clarke tweeted that it “ drew on outdated stereotypes and seeing it made him sick” (Carlson et al., 2017, p. 4). The only justification offered by the cartoonist was that he wanted to “promote discussion” (Carlson et al., 2017, p. 3). That seems like a lot of pain to cause for the sake of a discussion, but is not an unusual tactic on social media where often any attention is “good” attention.
One man that saw the cartoon started the campaign #IndigenousDads on Twitter, where Indigenous Dads posted photos of themselves with their children, and families posted about how their fathers had raised and inspired them (Carlson et al., 2017).
It was a strong collective display of pride, in an attempt by Indigenous Australians to take back the narrative, and their identities, and move to “reassert the agency and pride of Indigenous people in Australia” (Carlson & Frazer, 2018, p. 45).
A particularly serious concern with online interactions involving race is the level of aggression involved. Eschmann (2020) wrote that, in the present day, most racism in offline environments is covert. Once taken online, however racist attitudes become “unmasked” and far more explicit (Eschmann, 2020, p. 418). He said that, far from the subtlety, “race-neutral” language, and unconscious bias of offline conversations, there are thousands of Twitter posts every day that are far more outwardly derogatory, and which may identify underlying prejudice (Eschmann, 2020, p. 419). Anderson and Hitlin in Eschmann (2020) put the number of race-related posts on Twitter at over two million every day. A lot of this online behaviour has been explained by “fewer perceived social consequences,” and higher potential for anonymity. (Eschmann, 2020, p. 419)
The exposure to such aggressive racism, and attempts to fight against it, take a high toll on Indigenous Australians. Although a lot of this trauma is psychological, there is a very real threat of physical danger. In 2016, a woman posted online about “Aboriginal youth breaking into a vehicle” in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Comments on the post called for Aboriginal youth to be “hunted down,” and run off the road. Two days later, a 14 year old boy was killed when the dirt bike he was riding was struck by a vehicle (Carlson et al., 2017, p. 6). Among a collective outpouring of grief, some people celebrated his death and called for more of the same.
For Indigenous Australians, the fight against online racism is “painful, complicated, unrewarding and defeating” (Carlson & Frazer, 2018, p. 44). There are already extremely high rates of intergenerational trauma, and this only adds to the pain. It is often made worse when posts are shared (and therefore viewed) multiple times, and are a very public display of how far away true cultural diversity remains.
The First Australians are a crucial part of any cultural discussion in Australia. They need to lead discourse on the future of this country, much of it taking place on social media. All Australians can contribute by, at the very least, sharing accurate information. Those working in the information sphere are uniquely placed to find and share constructive, quality information, and educate social media users that need it.
Librarians have the capacity to run classes on how to use social media, and help people develop strong information and digital literacy skills. They can also use social media to share information supporting cultural diversity. Although outside more traditional information roles, “not doing so would be a shameful dereliction of duties” (Chancellor et al., 2021, p. 175). After all, “the library does not exist in a vacuum” (Rapchak, 2021, p. 142). Supporting the community’s information needs, even as they change over time, is a crucial responsibility that needs to be met. The potential role of librarians, and those in other information settings, “is that of facilitators of the communities’ agendas, efforts, and initiatives; … to provide them with what they need in order … to facilitate their strides into a future of self-determination” (Colón-Aguirre & Cooke, 2022, p. 65).
These images and words, posted by Geelong Regional Libraries on January 26th this year, is an excellent start. Posts do not have to be aggressive to be effective. In fact, it is often more inducive to productive conversation if it is not. Aboriginal organisation Clothing the Gaps shares information on their Instagram page that could be ideal for libraries to share.
To conclude, the last words – appropriately – are those of an Indigenous person. Follow this link to the inspiring work of Maori poet and educator, Te Kahu Rolleston.
References
Carlson, B., &, & Frazer, R. (2018). Yarning circles and social media activism. Media international Australia incorporating Culture & policy, 169(1), 43-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X18803762
Carlson, B. L., Jones, L. V., Harris, M., Quezada, N., &, & Frazer, R. (2017). Trauma, shared recognition and indigenous resistance on social media. AJIS. Australasian journal of information systems, 21. https://doi.org/10.3127/ajis.v21i0.1570
Chancellor, R. L., DeLoach, P., Dunbar, A., Lee, S., & , & Singh, R. (2021). From protests to practice: Confronting systemic racism in LIS. Education for Information, 37(2), 173-186. http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/EFI-211509
Colón-Aguirre, M., & , & Cooke, N. A. (2022). LibCrit: Moving toward an ethical and equitable critical race theory approach to social justice in library and information science. Journal of Information Ethics, 31(2), 57-69. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2307/JIE.31.2.57
Eschmann, R. (2020). Unmasking racism: Students of color and expressions of racism in online spaces. Social Problems, 67(3), 418-436. https://doi.org/10.1093/socpro/spz026
Rapchak, M. (2021). Introducing critical librarianship to information professionals: Using critical pedagogy and critical information literacy in an LIS graduate course. Communications in Information Literacy, 15(1), 140-157. https://ezproxy.deakin.edu.au/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1306510&site=eds-live&scope=site