Ownership over Images: Limiting Cultural Relations

Chapter 13 -- Indigenous Media: Negotiating Control over Images by Faye Ginsburg, Image Ethics in the Digital Age

"As we all struggle to comprehend the remapping of social space that is occurring as new media forms are being embraced for their globalizing qualities, indigenous media offer some other coordinates from which we can understand what an interconnected world might be like outside a hegemonic order. It is this sort of remapping that Jolene Rickard addresses in her insistence on cultural productions that refuse to break their relationship to a particular part of the world" (307).

Most forms of media are generally culturally related, whether to a specific country, or a specific group of people. Reading this article about indigenous media, wherein these forms of artworks refer to indigenous cultures, reminds me of the concept of national cinema with films. These films were seen to portray and depict a country's specific culture through stylistic approaches and be the universal language that represents the country as a whole.

In this article/essay, Ginsburg touches upon who has control over indigenous media/images. Some indigenous tribes are struggling to find funding through once-sympathetic sponsors who have grown wary in the present mode of privatization of media. But despite all the pressure to leave cultural productions and move into mainstream productions, indigenous and Native American tribes long to hold fast to their relational connections to a particular part of the world.

This stubbornness of indigenous tribes to continue associating with their culture makes me wonder why films and most other artworks no longer exhibit a small form of nationalism, in showing off one's culture? Is it because we have become more modernized, in light of which we are to associate with and relate to the greater public? Or is it because most artists have lost touch with their culture to incorporate cultural aspects into their artworks? Especially with mediated artworks, such as photography and film, it has become much easier to incorporate cultural aspects, whether it be in mise-en-scène, cinematography, or even the subject of the shot. In film, dialogue can also be used as a form of art to show off cultural relations. So why not take control over one's own images and choose to show the cultural aspect of it?