Nakamura, Digitizing Race, Introduction, chapter 5, Epilogue

88 Alllooksame?
the point that Western media are not the threat to the Walpiri; rather, the
“newly constructed, media-simulated Aboriginality, delivered as content by
AUSSAT satellite to the remote communities, can succeed at subverting
their traditions in a way that no other invasion has. It is not, then, through
the dumping of European content to these locations but through the transmission
of a powerful competing Aboriginal image, appropriated from the
bush, purchased at the expense of local media, and filtered through the grid
of a manufactured history that culturecide could readily be accomplished.” 36
His claim has far-reaching consequences, for it posits that a compromised
type of aboriginal new media production might prove more destructive to
native culture than any outside influence. The appropriation and transmission
of a false, manufactured, inauthentic type of nativism through cyberspace,
potentially a more global medium than even television, has the potential
for immense harm.
On the other hand, many new media collectives in traditionally “mediapoor”
countries who lack widespread access to the Internet strongly assert
the usefulness of Internet and computer use in the context of non-Western
culture. New Media Centre Sarai in Delhi is trying to make software for
people who are nonliterate as a means to wrest the medium away from cultural
elites. 37 Even more importantly, this move away from textual literacy
produces expressive forms that are more in line with the culture’s distinctive
media landscape, thus reducing the dangers of imperializing incursions
from the West. Jeebesh Bagchi, a Sarai member and a Raqs Media Collective
artist, claims that “India is a song and visual sign board culture” and
asks, “What kind of dialogue with this strange and eclectic world do we
want to create, not based on domination or populism?” 38 Envisioning and
using the Internet in visual rather than primarily textual ways can be a radically
empowering move for nonliterate groups.
Seen in this light, the Internet has tremendous potential for challenging
colonial regimes of power, particularly those that privilege access to the
written word. Sarai asserts that the Internet need not be a manifestation of
the West’s darker side but can be retooled as an empowering device for non-
Western users. Sarai’s emphasis on reaching nonliterate users acknowledges
the power dynamics associated with literacy. Before there was a digital divide,
questions of power had always worked themselves out in the written-word
divide. New electronic mediations that will successfully reach the “people”
may do so by detouring around the written word, a particularly appropriate
tactic in visual cultures such as India’s. As Bagchi explains: “So far in India