Mention “American Indian,” and the first image that comes to most people’s minds is likely to be a figment of the American mass media: A war-bonneted chief. The Land O’ Lakes maiden. Most American Indians in the twenty-first century live in urban areas, so why do the mass media still rely on Indian imagery stuck in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries? How can more accurate views of contemporary Indian cultures replace such stereotypes? These and similar questions ground the essays collected in American Indians and the Mass Media, which explores Native experience and the mainstream media’s impact on American Indian histories, cultures, and communities. Chronicling milestones in the relationship between Indians and the media, some of the chapters employ a historical perspective, and others focus on contemporary practices and new technologies. All foreground American Indian perspectives missing in other books on mass communication. The historical studies examine treatment of Indians in America’s first newspaper, published in seventeenth-century Boston, and in early Cherokee newspapers; Life magazine’s depictions of Indians, including the famous photograph of Ira Hayes raising the flag at Iwo Jima; and the syndicated feature stories of Elmo Scott Watson. Among the chapters on more contemporary issues, one discusses campaigns to change offensive place-names and sports team mascots, and another looks at recent movies such as Smoke Signals and television programs that are gradually overturning the “movie Indian” stereotypes of the twentieth century. Particularly valuable are the essays highlighting authentic tribal voices in current and future media. Mark Trahant chronicles the formation of the Native American Journalists Association, perhaps the most important early Indian advocacy organization, which he helped found. As the contributions on new media point out, American Indians with access to a computer can tell their own stories—instantly to millions of people—making social networking and other Internet tools effective means for combating stereotypes. Including discussion questions for each essay and an extensive bibliography, American Indians and the Mass Media is a unique educational resource.

A collection of articles about American Indians which appeared in the Spring 2000 edition of the American Indian Studies Review Journal.

Storytelling has always been an important part of Native culture. Stories play a part in everyday Native life—they are often oral and rich in detail and language and serve as a form of recording history. Digital media now allow for the extension of this storytelling. This necessary text evaluates how digital media are changing the rich cultural act of storytelling within Native communities, with a specific focus on Native newsroom norms and routines. The authors argue that the non-Native press often leave consumers with a stereotypical view of American Indians, and aim to give a more authentic representation to Native journalism. With interviews from more than forty Native journalists around the country, this book is essential to understanding how digital media possibly advances the distribution of storytelling within the American Indian community.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of how the media portray Native Americans and how Native Americans view and use the media. Whereas most previous works in this area have focused on one medium, Scott Sochay brings together material on news, entertainment and cultural issues, taking in newspapers, film, television, radio, books and the Internet. The book is also the first of its kind to bring to media issues the dual perspectives of a Native American (the author is a member of the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians) and of media scholars. Native Americans and the Media poses challenging questions such as: * Why are Native Americans rarely portrayed on TV and what can we learn from the few portrayals there are, for instance in Star Trek? * What can media and communication studies learn from the importance of orality in Native American cultures? * How are Native American filmmakers challenging stereotypical Hollywood representations? * How are Native tribes using new technologies such as the Internet to preserve culture and to share information? Designed to be accessible for upper level undergraduate students, Native Americans and the Media will be essential reading for those studying courses on Minorities and the Media and issues around race and ethnicity in contemporary American society.

Unsettling America explores the cultural politics of Indianness in the 21st century. It concerns itself with representations of Native Americans in popular culture, the news media, and political debate and the ways in which American Indians have interpreted, challenged, and reworked key ideas about them. It examines the means and meanings of competing uses and understandings of Indianness, unraveling their significance for broader understandings of race and racism, sovereignty and self-determination, and the possibilities of decolonization. To this end, it takes up four themes: false claims about or on Indianness, that is, distortions, or ongoing stereotyping; claiming Indianness to advance the culture wars, or how indigenous peoples have figured in post-9/11 political debates; making claims through metaphors and juxtaposition, or the use of analogy to advance political movements or enhance social visibility; and reclamations, or exertion of cultural sovereignty.

The world of contemporary American infants and young children is saturated with inappropriate images of American Indians. American Indian Stereotypes in the World of Children reveals and discusses these images and cultural stereotypes through writings like Kathy Kerner's previously unpublished essay on Thanksgiving and an essay by Dr. Cornell Pewewardy on Disney's Pocahontas film. This edition incorporates new writings and recent developments, such as a chronology documenting changes associated with the mascot issue, along with information on state legislation. Other new material incorporates powerful commentary by Native American veterans, who speak to the issue of stereotyping against their people in the military. Also includes a new expanded annotated bibliography.

"This is not a book about Indians. Rather, it is about how Indians have been written about in the mainstream press. It is about perceptions--readers' perceptions fostered by newspaper and magazine articles. These stories, I submit, had and have a powerful role in shaping our views of Native Americans--and the actions we and our representatives in government take based on those views"--Preface.