Disrupting the master narrative: Indigenous people and tweeting colonial history

My interest in Indigenous people's use of social media began while I was completing a PhD on the politics of identity. My participants would talk about how they expressed their Indigenous identities on social media. After I graduated, I was fortunate enough to receive an Australian Research Council Discovery Indigenous grant to conduct a national research project exploring Indigenous people's engagements on social media. The aim of the project was to provide a better understanding of how Indigenous people make use of online social network sites. In Australia, Indigenous people are enthusiastic users of mobile technologies and while rigorous data remains scant, research suggests that Indigenous people use social media at rates higher than non-Indigenous Australians. Drawing on data collected as part of a study conducted on Indigenous media habits by the McNair Ingenuity Research Institute, NITV journalist Tara Callinan revealed that, 'Facebook usage among First Nations people is 20 per cent higher than the national average'. Even in the most geographically 'remote' areas of Australia, mobile technologies are becoming increasingly commonplace and Indigenous people in these locations are, like non-Indigenous people, very much entrenched in the use of social media.