Introduction

The traditional concept of community has changed due to the emergence of social media, from small, fluid relationships such as family or workplace to a larger and even indefinable concept (Liu et al., 2017). As mentioned by Hampton and Wellman (2018), the emergence of social media is fundamentally brought about by technological change, and social media is an important driving force for community evolution or change. They also found that the emergence of new technologies, which can also be called social media, brings a certain amount of panic to residents in the community because they need to maintain online relationships, which is complex and prone to conflict. In Carlson and Kennedy’s (2021) further research on the relationship between specific indigenous communities and social media, they found that social media can bring indigenous peoples opportunities and platforms to express their identities to other indigenous peoples through video, but indigenous peoples often encounter the problems that the authenticity of their  indigenous identity is questioned. Whether such doubts are due to the lack of understanding of indigenous people by non-indigenous people or the limited information about indigenous identities that social media can display, both have a certain impact on the identification of indigenous people on social media. 

 

Nowadays, the emergence of the new social platform Tik Tok is the integration of new technology and modern life, which is also defined as a platform that increases new forms of communication within or between communities (Zhang, 2021). One of the characteristics of Tik Tok is that it has created and cultivated many strong indigenous creator communities, and through the unique algorithm used by the “for you page” center, the video is pushed to people in the same indigenous community, which is a unique feature that other social platforms do not have (Burgess, 2021). Tik Tok allows users to show themselves by recording videos of 15 seconds to one minute or three minutes or even longer, which can help users express their identities and find indigenous communities with the same identities as themselves (Middleton, 2022). Therefore, this paper proposes an argument that the emergence of the new social media platform Tik Tok has further helped Aboriginal people to strengthen their identity through online platforms.

 

 

The evolution of Tik Tok

Tik Tok has reached a phenomenal status in modern society and is the fastest growing new social media platform on the Internet (Kaye et al., 2021). As a start-up company founded in 2014, Tik Tok is now able to compete with mature social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Netflix (Burns, 2021). Tik Tok has accumulated more than 2 billion downloads in the past four years, covering more than 200 countries (Iqbal, 2023), reflecting the popularity of the social platform. While being loved by many users, Tik Tok has also been controversial and challenged by different governments (Zeng & Kaye, 2022). For example, the Indonesian government imposed a one-week restriction on Tik Tok in 2018. The reason for the restriction was that the government believed that the content in Tik Tok was inappropriate and suspected of blasphemy. Later, in 2020, the Indian government also banned the use of Tik Tok in India on the grounds that Tik Tok has a lot to do with geopolitics. Similarly, former US President Trump also claimed that Tik Tok needs to be banned due to US national security considerations. These controversies are fundamentally related to the special attributes of the social media. Francisco and Ruhela (2021) mentioned in the study that the entire social platform of Tik Tok is powered by artificial intelligence, including the use of algorithms to analyze users’ interests and preferences, and then pushing videos that users may like through artificial intelligence. In Tik Tok, some so-called influencers will show their identities, skills, life or provide some advice and skills to their audiences through the social form of videos (Warburton, 2022). It is this open and transparent display that makes some governments feel that Tik Tok has the risk of infringing on privacy, beliefs, or threatening national security. Although Tik Tok has suffered many challenges, it is precisely because of these controversies that Tik Tok’s popularity has gradually opened up in different communities (Scalvini, 2020). However, Tik Tok has indeed helped indigenous people to strengthen their identities.

 

The indigenous communities 

Corntassel (2003) defined indigenous peoples as distinct social and cultural groups that share a common ancestral link with the lands and natural resources from which they inhabit, occupy or displace. The land and natural resources owned by indigenous peoples are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, physical and mental health and livelihoods. Indigenous peoples tend to follow and support leaders and organizations they recognize, thereby creating communal indigenous communities to achieve their own identity and status, which often distinct from the dominant society or culture (Ball & Janyst, 2008). Many Aboriginal communities have their own distinct language that is different from one or more official languages of the country or region in which they live (Romaine, 2012). Hence, linguistic distinctiveness is a way for indigenous peoples to identify themselves as different from the dominant culture, but there are also many indigenous peoples who have lost their languages in the course of social evolution and progress or have been expelled from their original lands. Furthermore, according to the OECD, Indigenous peoples are those who lived in a country before colonization, and their descendants, who identify themselves by inhabiting the most primitive lands that belonged to them (OECD, 2023). Indigenous peoples within indigenous communities govern themselves internally, including the management of their social, cultural and political institutions (Rainie et al., 2017). They also possess unique assets and knowledge, use their ability to address global challenges such as environmental sustainability, and contribute significantly to regional and national economies. According to the research from Adane et al. (2019), there is a significant gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations. First, the number of indigenous people accounts for about 5% of the world’s population, and their scarce numbers are one of the special features of their identity. But according to the United Nations, indigenous peoples account for 15 percent of the world’s extreme poor, with rural poor accounting for one-third of the total. Consequently, there is a certain economic gap between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (Throsby & Petetskaya, 2016). In addition, the survey shows that there is an average difference of 8.4 percentage points in the employment rate between indigenous and non-indigenous people, even if they also live in urban areas. At the same time, the employment rate gap between indigenous and non-indigenous people in rural areas is approximately 20 percentage points. It is precisely because of these gaps that in real life, many non-indigenous people will inherently have a kind of discrimination and prejudice against indigenous people. In the study form De Costa and Clark (2016), on non-indigenous people’s perception of indigenous people, it is mentioned that non-indigenous people perceive indigenous people as a vulnerable group, and some are even reluctant to recognize their indigenous identity.

 

Indeed, Indigenous peoples are poor and vulnerable may be for the reason that  their lands, territories and natural resources are often not formally recognized by others, and so face numerous barriers in accessing basic government services and public investment in infrastructure (Papillon & Rodon, 2017). In addition, indigenous communities often face insufficient participation in processes and decision-making related to the formal economy, judicial power and politics (Merino, 2018). Pervasive inequalities and prejudices make Indigenous peoples more vulnerable to the disproportionate impacts of natural disasters and climate change. For example, during the outbreak of the previous pandemic, indigenous peoples suffered a great impact on their livelihoods, food and well-being due to the lack of national sanitation and water system support, and challenges such as market closures and movement restrictions (Hutchison et al., 2021). In other words, it is the combination of insufficient external support and malicious prejudice that has caused indigenous communities to suffer development challenges and thus have a significant gap in employment and income compared with non-indigenous peoples. Although Indigenous peoples hold only a quarter of the world’s land, they are responsible for protecting the remaining 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Meanwhile, indigenous peoples have long had knowledge and expertise on how to adapt, mitigate and reduce climate change or disaster risk (Domínguez & Luoma, 2020). Therefore, it can be said that indigenous peoples have also made great contributions in the process of world development, and should not be discriminated against and prejudiced only as vulnerable groups.

 

The identity of Indigenous people

Aboriginal identity represents Aboriginal people’s strong sense of belonging to the communities in which they were born and survived (Hawkins & Gillett, 2015). Aboriginal people may be a relative concept politically and economically, but Aboriginal identity is a core criterion for them to be able to prove themselves and take some action (Kovach, 2015). Walker and Moscardo (2016) mentioned that in all definitions or literatures related to the identity of Aboriginal, it is their sense of place, more commonly referred to as land sense, that are more or less mentioned. Indigenous peoples are often embroiled in debates over stolen versus conquered land, the location of borders and forced relocation because of their Indigenous status (Gunstone, 2016). Hence, it can be said that Aboriginal identity is ultimately about land. Although land is only one component of Aboriginal identity, it has shaped traditions related to food, shelter and community organization. Land still owns some representation in the stories and oral traditions which guides people’s behavior and beliefs. These illustrate that different divisions of land often result in different behaviors and beliefs, and thus forming Aboriginal communities that represent different identities. At the same time, indigenous communities are able to maintain a distinct identity and idiosyncrasy somewhere within a dominant nation-state by virtue of their Indigenous identity, even with the increase in global insignificant migration, mixed-race populations, and general mobility (Ford et al., 2020).

 

The identity of Indigenous people on social media

According to Carlson and Kennedy (2021), social media has had some impact on Aboriginal people. On the one hand, social media offers Aboriginal people many benefits such as establishing and displaying their Indigenous identity, building and maintaining strong ties with Aboriginal communities and families, and providing mutual support within Aboriginal communities where they find a sense of belonging. On the other hand, more and more indigenous people have revealed the harm they have suffered on social media, including white supremacy that is contrary to their own beliefs mentioned in comment areas or in the media, the identity of indigenous people has been questioned and challenged, and the Intra-community conflict, which is often also brought about by differences in colonial perceptions of legitimate Aboriginal identity. Carlson et al. (2015) said that the Aboriginal community on social media is experiencing a mental health crisis, and some harmful content on social media has even led to an increase in the suicide rate of Aboriginal people. Victims of cyberbullying are at high risk of developing mental health problems, the worst of which can manifest in behaviors such as depression, anxiety and suicide. While a majority of participants in the survey on the pros and cons of social media agreed that negative content is commonplace on social media, around 63% of those surveyed said they discussed indigenous people and racist ideas on social platforms on a daily basis negative content, while 97% of respondents said they see bad content at least weekly (Kennedy, 2021).

 

The identity of Indigenous people on Tik Tok

The negative impact of social media on aborigines mentioned before seems to have eased with the emergence of the new social platform Tik Tok. Indigenous people gradually began to use Tik Tok to share their culture with the world through dance, jokes and telling history (Jia & Liang, 2021). When Bhandari and Bimo (2022) evaluate Tik Tok, they said that this social platform has the same function as Twitter, Facebook, that is, to provide users with endless entertainment. But Zhang (2021) pointed out that Tik Tok has gradually developed into a powerful educational tool to help indigenous peoples show their own culture and connect with other cultures. He found that local content creators began to turn to Tik Tok and share their lives, history and customs through videos. The Tik Tok platform created a hashtag named #NativeTikTok dedicated to indigenous peoples, which has been viewed more than 6.5 billion times so far. Tik Tok has gradually become a meaningful forum for indigenous people to express their cultural pride and speak out for their indigenous communities or races. Even some traditions and rituals that are considered illegal or forbidden in the country are allowed to be displayed on Tik Tok (Purnamawati et al., 2022). Zhang (2021) explored the storytelling role of Tik Tok in the promotion of most indigenous cultures. Whether it is through the form of changing text stories into video or the way indigenous people dictate stories in videos, Tik Tok can help people in indigenous communities continue to spread the knowledge they have passed down from generation to generation. It is also a way to resist language and history, in which cultural elements fade away, thereby maintaining their Aboriginal identity. Sunjata (2022) finds that videos uploaded by indigenous communities on Tik Tok can be seen as an act of decolonization and resistance to prejudice, thereby showing their indigenous identity and indigenous culture to other users. For example, Tia Wood uploads videos of herself singing and dancing on Tik Tok. She is Plains Cree and Salish and also has the status of Jingle dancer and singer. The video she posted on Tik Tok has aroused people’s discussion on some rights of indigenous women today. She said that she was sent to boarding schools when she was in school and suffered discrimination against indigenous people. She was asked not to show any forms of Aboriginal cultural practices. Therefore, she uploaded dancing and singing videos on Tik Tok to show her aboriginal identity and safeguard the rights and interests of aboriginal people (Back, 2022). In addition, Nich Richie is a child who grew up in a host family, because the place he stayed in was a non-aboriginal family, so he did not feel the aboriginal culture since he was a child, but he discovered aboriginal creators on Tik Tok community, and found their own Aboriginal community. He thinks he has found his identity within this community, where appointments are kind, responsible, and supportive of each other (Boseley, 2021). Therefore, it can be seen from the cases of Tia Wood and Nich Richie that the emergence of TikTok has further helped Aboriginal people strengthen their identity through online platforms.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, based on previous research on social media and Indigenous identities, it is believed that previous social media platforms have an important role in establishing and displaying Indigenous identities, establishing and maintaining strong connections with Indigenous communities, and finding a sense of belonging in Indigenous communities. In addition to the supportive advantages, Indigenous peoples are also challenged by ideas of white supremacy, Aboriginal identities being questioned and challenged, and conflicts within Aboriginal communities. Meanwhile, Tik Tok is also facing resistance and challenges from many governments, while the uniqueness of the video display and the setting of the local creator community have given many indigenous people the opportunity to express their indigenous identity and promote indigenous culture on the Internet. Therefore, the emergence of TikTok further helps indigenous people strengthen their identity through online platforms.

Zheng_18543441_Conference Paper

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