Centering Indigenous Standpoints through Mediated Communication

This book explores how different forms of Indigenous media, including social media, are significant advocatory and educational methods of resistance against repeated attempts at genocide, erasure, misrepresentation, vilification, forced assimilation, and stereotyping perpetuated by colonial systems.

In this book, Ben R. LaPoe and Victoria L. LaPoe discuss how, unlike mainstream media operating under settler principles, Indigenous media privileges Indigenous life experiences, emphasizes Indigenous contexts, honors Indigenous social mores, amplifies Indigenous voices, and incorporates Indigenous worldviews. The book introduces readers to these intersections of Indigenous knowledge and explores the ways in which narrative advocacy empowers and benefits those who communicate their own voices and experiences.

Through a multi-method approach and analyses of Indigenous social media posts using Indigenous Standpoint Theory as a framework, the authors identify and explain Indigenous advocacy renovation efforts on mainstream social media platforms and demonstrate how different platforms can impact a community and act as a form of source sovereignty. Ultimately, the authors position Indigenous Standpoint Theory as a key approach to supporting the decolonization of knowledge and advocacy in media spaces.