The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribe has launched a new web called
The Rez We Live On.
New Web site aims to set record straight on Flathead Indian ReservationBy Vince DevlinUsing short videos with rudimentary animation and voiceovers, the new Web site--launched Tuesday--offers CSKT's explanation about seven different areas, with plans to add at least three more.
It explains how Tribal Police and the CSKT court system work, both on their own and in conjunction with state and local authorities, in one. In another, it dispels the notion that the federal or state governments hand out checks to tribal members.And:
McDonald says the idea for the short videos came from his boyhood. "Schoolhouse Rock!" aired during Saturday morning cartoons on ABC and featured animated educational musical short films that taught kids about science, math, grammar and more.
"I think they were imprinted into the minds of people of my generation," McDonald says. "There's a power to this approach."New web site from Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribe‘The Rez We Live On’
By Molly PriddyAccording to CSKT Communications Director Robert McDonald, the goal is to reach everyone, especially the media-savvy younger generation. “Young people and new residents in the area may be more open to the Tribe’s message. But the fact is that lifelong residents of the reservation may not have heard a lot of this information either.”
McDonald believes that passed-on misinformation has been the norm for so long that, “it’s hard for people to know what is the actual truth. We’re hopeful that this campaign will help people understand CSKT by knowing the facts. Maybe this will start a healthy dialogue.”
2 comments:
Looks like they unveiled it way too early, before they completed the website. The FAQ has only one question
The content page is pretty much blank (other than an email address, which puts the organization on par with amateur bloggers and shady ecommerce hosting sites).
I will have to go elsewhere to answer such a basic question as "where is this tribe's reservation located?".
What the site does have is audio glitches that happen randomly when the front page is loaded or refreshed.
Curiously, while the page is loaded/refreshed, a large amount of possibly useful text information fills the screen. But only for a split second. Then it is gone, with no apparent way to get it back.
I hope they get the site working someday.
I think the tribe designed this site more to debunk myths than to provide basic information. For the facts about the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, visit www.cskt.org.
The Video page is the main content page. It has seven videos with simple animated graphics. They appear to do what they were designed to do: address some key issues simply and directly.
I agree the website is primitive and needs a lot of work. But others seem to like it:
http://www.reznetnews.org/article/rez-we-live-debunks-myths-about-native-americans-39080
"We got some great, great response from this," said Robert McDonald, tribal communications director and mastermind behind the site, "so far so good."
"I like it," [non-Native Marli] Harmon said. "It presents the material in a fresh way."
"It's kind of quirky looking," said James Steele Jr., CSKT tribal council chairman. "But that seems to be an interesting way of catching people's attention."
So far, the site is doing well, having received good comments and emails from viewers and even being endorsed by Denise Juneau, Montana State Superintendant of Public Instruction, said Steele.
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