Page 60 - AIB | The Chanel | Issue 1 2012

60 | ISSUE 1 2012 | THE CHANNEL
n November, at the Fist Full
of Films festival in Darwin,
Australia, mobile journalism
came out of the closet and
into the public spotlight.
“And the winner is —Ramo
News by Gerald Yawulkpuy.”
For Gerald, who made the long trip
to attend the awards from
Ramingining in West Arnhem Land
with his mum Mia, the win brought
mixed feelings. “I’m sad my dad is
not here to see this, but proud of
what I did, really proud."
Recently the multi award
winning feature film, 10 Canoes, put
the spotlight on Ramingining but
this was different ‐ Gerald the local
lad made good didn’t have a crew
of 100 helping make his news
programme ‐ he did it all on his
own. Just a few months ago Gerald
was a community DJ. However at
the awards, in front of 500 people—
almost as many as live in
Ramingining—Gerald’s work was
being acknowledged in a way that
would change his life forever.
Almost overnight he’d gone from
local hero to an award winning
mobile journalist—a mojo—with a
social message and the skills to
promote it. “Culture is very special
for us, and we can teach kids not to
do bad things with mojo work”,
said the proud Yolngu man after
receiving his award.
Gerald is one of a group of nine
Indigenous people from isolated
communities in the Northern
Territory who signed up to learn
how to use smartphones loaded with
editing software to create and publish
self‐contained stories to the web.
“This little gadget is not video
(but) it’s powerful for telling our
stories” says excited Louis Kantilla,
from Bathurst Island in the Arafura
Sea. Louis decided to learn to mojo
because he found the technology
liberating. “You can do it right in
your hands, maybe you can go
fishing and do editing when you
throw (in) the line.”
Mojo’s equipment enables them
to plan, shoot, edit and upload
stories to the web—from the phone
without having to leave the
location. A mojoʹs local knowledge
and ability to stay with the story
can provide a unique perspective
and unparalleled access to
unfolding news events.
OLDEST STORY TELLERS
Indigenous people have been
telling stories for many, many
years. The contemporary history of
Ivo Burum is an
award winning TV
writer, director,
and producer who’s
worked in more
than 40 countries.
He is a pioneer of
the user generated
style of production
in Australia, and
here he describes
how the mobile
evolution is
enabling
Indigenous mobile
journalists to
report from the
most isolated
communities, using
only their
smartphone and 3G
telephony
I
MOJOINTHEOUTBACK
HOWTO
The real
magic of
mojo is
the lack of
gate-
keeping
“
”