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Introduction
Aboriginal communication systems existed on the North American and Australian continents for tens of thousands of years before white invasion. As the power and influence of non-Aboriginal media has transformed the wider public sphere, Aboriginal people have continued to seek access to their own media for political, educational, and cultural reasons. This pattern of development of Aboriginal media worldwide has been influenced by the recognition of the possibility of using media as tools for cultural and political intervention--allowing the dispossessed to "speak as well as hear" (Girard, 1992, p. 2). This is driven by several impulses--combating stereotypes, addressing information gaps in non-Aboriginal society, and reinforcing community cultures. These responses by Aboriginal people have grown out of a commitment to the disparate communities in which they live.
While in one sense this process exists at the periphery of mainstream conceptions of the public sphere, we suggest the implications are far more profound. We argue that rather than adopting the idea of a single, all-encompassing public sphere, that instead we need to think in terms of a series of parallel and overlapping public spheres--spaces where participants with similar cultural backgrounds engage in activities concerning issues and interests of importance to them. In this way, they articulate their own discursive styles and formulate their own positions on issues that are then brought to a wider public sphere where they are able to interact "across lines of cultural diversity" (Fraser, 1993, p. 13). Behind much of the impetus for the development of Aboriginal media production is the fear of further cultural and language shifts because of the influence of mainstream media--symbolic of broader public sphere activity. Alien radio or television broadcasts for Aboriginal people in Australia and Canada represent a double-edged sword--constituting both a threat to and an information source for communities (Langton, 1993; Meadows, 1995b). Strategies initiated by Aboriginal communities to overcome the negative elements include varied forms of technical and cultural control, and production (Schmidt, 1993). In this sense, media technologies might be seen as a community cultural resource enabling public sphere activity rather than a harbinger of cultural imperialism (Meadows, 1994, 1995a). In this discussion, we consider the response by Aboriginal print media in Canada and Australia to an often hostile cultural environment and suggest...