ABSTRACT
The two-way video and audio-compressed digital videoconferencing Tanami Network is owned and operated by Aboriginal communities in Australia’s ‘red heart’ (Mitchell et al., 1994b). This six-site network links four remote communities by satellite with sites in Alice Springs and Darwin and via Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) with facilities throughout Australia and overseas. The communities’ primary requirement of the Network was for access and privacy in conducting community, ceremonial and family business; it has become an important means of maintaining traditional law, knowledge and social frameworks. The Tanami Network has also proved to be a cost-effective and culturally appropriate means of providing education and telemedicine, links with distant students, patients and prisoners, evidence at hearings and enterprises within the communities. It has also been used to auction the community artists’ distinctive ‘dot paintings’ at Sotheby’s in London, assess the suitability of an overseas academic wishing to undertake research into these paintings, discuss Aboriginal culture with an audience in London’s Festival Hall and establish links with interstate Aboriginal communities. By allowing them to speak as a group from the places where they live, the technology has enhanced the confidence of these communities (Granites and Toyne, 1994).
