Rhetorical Dimensions of Native American Documentary

Since the advent of more affordable video technology in the late seventies and early eighties, various indigenous groups have recognized the potential of video for intragroup communication and as a means of gaining cultural and political recognition in the wider society. Video and film productions are used to "rethink history," even to address "the ignorance of the dominant culture" about past history and contemporary culture. In the United States, Native Americans have been actively making videos based on an initial focus of "helping to enhance the survival of their own communities," in their own production facilities and through coproduction arrangements with non-Native videographers and filmmakers (Weatherford 1990, 59).

Similar developments in indigenous video production have occurred in Canada, South America, and Australia, and alternative video has grown as a communication tool for political movements throughout the world. Video's d... more