Webcast gives Ojibwa radio a world audience

Combining interests in technology, journalism and Native American culture, two College of Letters and Science staff members are collaborating with a Native American radio station in northern Wisconsin to “webcast” to an international audience.

Related Web site: WOJB

Shiela Reaves, associate professor of journalism and mass communication, and Brian Deith, information processing consultant, work with northern Wisconsin Ojibwa members to broadcast WOJB programming over the Internet.

WOJB, located at the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College near Hayward, broadcasts seven days a week, bringing locally produced news and public affairs programming to a much broader audience.

Some “hits” at the station’s web site can be traced to Alaska and New Zealand. Deith says the university provides an important tool bridging Native American culture and the digital age.

“It is important to help others learn how to use technology,” Deith says. “The university is providing an avenue to help the Ojibwa expand their influence.”

WOJB sends its signal to a Macintosh server on campus, where university equipment compresses the signal and casts it onto the Internet. Listeners can hear broadcasts using QuickTime.

Phil Certain, dean of the College of Letters and Science, calls the WOJB project “a prime example of Letters and Science staff reaching out and providing expertise to projects outside the university. Shiela and Brian’s work helped give an international voice to a community which otherwise would not have had access to the necessary technology.”

Radio connects strongly with Native Americans because of their oral tradition, says Shelly Galloway, WOJB web director. Many Native Americans use radio as a primary medium for news, information and entertainment. For geographically dispersed, politically and economically marginalized populations, the Internet promises a way to communicate and level the playing field. Find WOJB at: http://www.wojb.org.