Remote Indigenous communities are one of the most digitally excluded groups in Australia. But where there is internet access, there is rapid uptake, particularly on mobile devices. Remote users are also one of the groups who benefit the most from internet access. And as we know, the internet is becoming the only way for many people living remotely to access some services – things like retail, training, banking – we've seen the consolidation of government services on MyGov.
We see four challenges for digital inclusion in remote Indigenous communities.
The first is Availability of infrastructure due to market failure and a lack of universal service obligation that includes internet access. The internet is increasingly on demand and aimed at those with high speed and low latency connections. Of course, this is an issue with data plans with autoPlay videos and these sorts of things. While, in many communities, we have a media learning or youth centre where people can access the internet, this is usually via satellite and inadequate for the number of users. And it remains to be seen how the new nbn satellite services will impact in these communities. Of course, some communities have 3G and 4G access, but this can often be congested. Trials of public free and paid wi-fi mesh networks are running in some communities, and this also can provide access to locally cached content.
The second area is Affordability. Pre-paid mobile data plans are the most expensive data plans, but really the only realistic option for low-income earners in a mobile population who wants to communicate with each other online. We've heard reports of people spending up to 50% of their income on mobile data. Community wi-fi networks and caching can help alleviate this.
Appropriateness. The internet is mostly text-based English – this is a challenge when English is your second or third language. In remote communities, they've seen this problem before in the 1980s with the introduction of satellite broadcasting services – there was concern about the impact it would have on language and culture. The response there was to effectively 'fight fire with fire' and produce their own media - notably pirate television stations were made in the beginning of the remote broadcasting Aboriginal community scheme, which has led to a vibrant radio, television, music and television industry today, of which IRCA is the peak body. Today, there are similar concerns about the impact of mobile devices and internet access on language, culture and community life. We have old people with cultural knowledge, young people who are computer-literate and spending hours each day on Facebook and YouTube. So this can create a cultural inversion that threatens to undermine the cultural authority and status of elders.
One of the ways communities have been attempting to address this is by engaging young people with app and online projects that include a cultural component, such as a language or mapping app. There's also a discussion about cultural authority and community control. For example, what happens when there's a problem that's been caused by Facebook? Questions are asked such as – can we turn the internet off for a period of time until we sort it out?
Some examples of community projects are Ara Irititja – also known as Keeping Culture, or Community Stories in the Northern Territory. Ara Irititja has been one of the longest-running media archives in South Australia. There's also language dictionary apps, map and country, oral history, family trees, and the experimentation with caching and downloadable content as opposed to-on- demand, which is becoming the norm elsewhere.
The fourth area is Awareness – the understanding of digital literacy, and IRCA is currently running IndigiMob, a program in Central Australia funded by Telstra, based on the idea of digital mentoring. Rather than a set curriculum, it uses mobile apps for projects to learn through experimenting. People learn basic skills through the projects, and progress to higher skills and knowledge as they work on more sophisticated projects. This can be as simple as taking some photos on an iPad and learning how to transfer them onto a USB stick, or they can be more complex projects, and people kind of learn the skills as they do them. It can be a needs-based response – online services require you to have an email address, a lot of people don't have an email address, so then we go through the process of creating a strong password, how do I remember it, why do I need a strong password, cyber safety, and so on. So people in remote areas want to use these services.
IRCA has argued that the ongoing viability of remote communities will increasingly depend on effective broadband access and digital literacy. Without adequate infrastructure, affordability and understanding, people in remote areas will not be able to access the online services for training, education, communication, service delivery and media that people elsewhere in the country take for granted.
- Liam Campbell, Digital Projects
A full list of transcripts and videos from the conference can be found on this page: http://accan.org.au/accanevents/1226-accanect-2016