Living pictures: Design and the native press

Newspaper Research Journal, Spring 1998 by Ganje, Lucy A

Culturally-based media design preserves the heritage of Native American groups and may communicate better to its audiences than EuroAmerican design.

"Much of the wisdom of the American Indians is written in symbols language without letters or sounds that speaks to that part of our nature which remembers."1

This paper introduces a culturally based approach to the design of Native newspapers. Its purpose is to generate useful questions, and to invite not only designers working in the American Indian press but also those working on local newspapers to move beyond a look too often dictated by the elite press. Design should more often arise from community context and be defined according to principles indigenous to that community.

The Native American Journalists Association sponsors a yearly awards competition for member publications. A portion of the competition focuses on design and layout, which may cause a dilemma for those asked to judge this portion of the contest.

How does one offer suggestions for the design or improvement of Native newspapers without recommending deletion of the very characteristics that could make the newspaper a uniquely Native publication?

How to support creating Native style and identity, resistant to the dominant design codes and standard models?

If those who judge design competitions are not knowledgeable of, or sensitive to, the construction and consumption of messages within the context of the particular culture the publications serve, they may simply be driving just another assimilationist vehicle. The U.S. Government adopted assimilation as a policy toward Native people in the early 1900s. It sought to make them similar to EuroAmerican people and then absorb them into the system.2

The pressure to assimilate into white-defined culture has long been a destructive force in American Indian and other minority communities. Education was an important goal of federal Indian policy throughout the 19th century and schools were traditionally a central focus of missionary and reform activity. Many Indian family oral histories now include horror stories of boarding school life where children were presumably raised to civilization from savagery. Native children were forbidden to practice their customs or speak their language. This push for assimilation forced them to dress, speak and act the same as those who were members of the then dominant society. It required that they renounce their heritage and look the same as everyone else.3 Design consultants and instructors need not follow in the tracks of the early missionaries or government officials and repeat the injustices of forced assimilation through the educational process.

The sameness often seen in newspaper formats today has been referred to as cookie-cutter design. If Native culture, with all its complexities, is not considered when designing for the Native press, we risk turning these publications into clones of their EuroAmerican neighbors. A layout format developed for one audience may not serve others effectively and this missionary approach spreads an aesthetic into other cultures who may be better served by home-grown designs.4 This assimilationist approach to newspaper design homogenizes the unique character of Native communities and moves us a step closer to a cookie-cutter world.

Aesthetic consideration is important in design and layout but, like taste, may be very subjective. Aesthetics have to do with the concepts of function, form, content, truthfulness and ethics. When we apply aesthetics to visual communication the focus is on perception.5 In order to understand the significance of cross-cultural design and aesthetics it is necessary to recognize the link between culture and communication.

Perception varies according to culture. Rather than giving all peoples and cultures the same visual identity, newspaper design and layout should acknowledge and nurture the differences. Intercultural communication is built on the idea that how we see and how we feel is determined, to a large extent, by the culture in which we were raised.6

"Visual communicators laboring in mass communication must understand the social, economic, political, and artistic conditions that are part of the environment in which the communication will be received."' A clear understanding of a community must include an awareness of the history, traditions and spiritual concerns of that particular community. This awareness, coupled with an understanding of ways in which "the press is involved in the reproduction of white group and elite dominance" can provide the information and impetus needed for change.8

Stereotypes and false perceptions are often found in stories written about Indian country issues. A competent reporter or designer will gain a more realistic perspective by researching the history of tribal nations. "The media breed distrust in Indian communities when they remain ignorant of a tribe's unique form of government, its laws, its history and people."9

Good newspaper design, while sometimes visually jolting the audience in order to attract its attention, may also create an environment in which readers can relax and be comfortable. And a comfortable environment must include elements which reflect the culture and world view of the reader. The design and layout of any newspaper should be an act of cultural empathy.10 Culturally appropriate concepts for the design of publications focusing on Native issues and communities may be produced by studying the visually significant aspects of these societies, including the many belief systems and social dimensions reflected in any one community.