RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

were confineđ to a very limited time schedule . In 1981, the ABC commissioned the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association in Alice Springs (CAAHA ) to provide it with a 90 minute weekly program to be broadcast from the ABC's Alice Springs station . Today the ABC broadcasts to Aborigines app . ten hours per week over ten transmitters in those areas where many Aborigines live . In 1984, the government allocated some funds to the Public Broadcasting Foundation in order to encourage greater use of public broadcasting in Aboriginal communities . Ву 1984, some 20 public radio stations were broadcasting about 60 hours weekly of Aboriginal programs. In 1983, CAAMA was granted a public broadcasting licence . CAAMA broadcasts over 30 hours per week in English anđ four Aboriginal languages . (Host recently , the organization has also been granted a television licence . ) A new government program, Broadcasting for Remote Aboriginal Communities Scheme (BRACS , should help to bring radio and TV to more Aboriginal communities . However , there are considerable dangers involved in this exercise. Communication of information in traditional Aboriginal communities is carefully reguiated . Since most of the programs will. be in English , it is the уоипдег generation which will benefit most from BRASC , precisely the generation which, according to custom, should be introduced to the facts of life step by step and by initiation rather than by alien cultural concepts in all openness . Moreover , Aborigines will be bombarded with European and American values , will see and hear themselves as some sort of exotic people (which is how they are mostly represented in Australian media) , and very little will be broadcast which woulđ help to maintain Aboriginal self-esteem and identification with Aboriginal values . Under the BRACS scheme , some very simple radio and video eguipment will be provided which should enable the community at least to speak to its own members . The Task Force responsible for developing the BRACS scheme has stresseđ that radio will be particularly important as a medium for language preservation . (There are hundreds of đifferent languages and dialects spoken by Aborigines . ) 20 ) PUBLIC BROADCASTING Australian public broađcasting (in other countries this would be referred to as community broadcasting) started as a grassroot movement. Pressure to change Australian broadcasting came mainly from four diff erent groups : lovers of fine music (who also pushed for the introduction of FM) , ethnic communities , universities and political elements in the public broadcasting movement which wanteđ to have alrwaves opened up . It was only on the insistence of this movement that Australia

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