How to value Aboriginal language television programming

Aboriginal programming is one of Canada's most worthwhile initiatives, from the classic radio program Dead Dog Cafe to Nick Rowe's favourite show, Moosemeat and Marmalade. But what is it worth? If you were asked to do an economic impact assessment of Aboriginal media - especially Aboriginal language programming - how would you do it? 

A lot of economic impact assessments work on the principle that the costs are the benefits - so the benefits of Aboriginal language television programming are the jobs that are created, and so on. The problem with this line of reasoning is that it doesn't think about opportunity costs. The money spent on Aboriginal language television programming could have been spent on something else, and that something else would also have created jobs. What is special about Aboriginal language television programming?

Television, radio, and other media tell stories. They provide role models. They allow people to imagine other ways of living, of doing things, of arranging the world. They give people scripts for their day-to-day lives. The evidence is building that media stories have a profound effect on people's economic decisions.

• Women exposed to Brazilian telenovelas, which typically feature smaller-than-average families, have significantly reduced fertility. Ungated here,published here.
• The introduction of cable and satellite television in rural India is associated with significant changes in attitudes about the acceptability of domestic violence, as well as increased female autonomy and decreased fertility. Ungated here, published here.
• The MTV show "16 and Pregnant" was associated with a significant decline in teen pregnancies Ungated here, published in the American Economic Review.
• This paper, by Eliana La Ferrara, provides a nice summary of the literature on mass media and social change.

Yet people in Canada's remote and northern communities already have satellite TV and the internet. What is the value of programming tailored to the Aboriginal community?  Role models matter. This really quite nice paper by Kirsten Cornelson argues that being exposed to positive role models - like those provided by the Cosby show back in the day - has a positive effect on black students' college attainment. The paper also has a good survey of the literature.

A key value of Aboriginal language programming in Canada is that it helps preserve Aboriginal languages. Is it possible to put an economic value on that? I imagine that one could put an economic value on preserving endangered languages, just like people put economic values on endangered species, but I'm not sure how one could go about doing it. I found this link. This talks about language preservation as part of the Truth and Reconciliation process (for non-Canadians - this is the result of an inquiry into Canada's system of residential schools, where Aboriginal students were often punished for speaking their native language). But I don't have a lot of ideas.

Perhaps people can suggest ideas in the comments? If you had to do an economic impact assessment for, say, an Inuktitut television station, how would you go about doing it?

 

Comments

[Cheyenne Martin]

Personally I think the role model argument would hold true for language programming, oddly enough. One thing you see again and again are people growing up within Indigenous communities who feel that their identities are not legitimate to "white" society and it causes them to hold themselves back. My mother was really scarred growing up speaking a "devil" language, it works itself out in all kinds of ways. Role models can be problematic because they often seem extraordinary, but seeing representations of people like yourself in your own language is legitimating in a very profound way. There may be enough data to look at educational attainment in the context of Nunavut and northern Cree communities, but there are a lot of other factors going on.

I don't love the environmental valuation approach because it often ends up relying on surveys that reflect only theoretical preferences. It is pretty common to value your language but not enough to teach it to your kids. But you are very happy if they learn it at school, so it must be worth something! (This did make me wonder if there is library data from First Nation and territorial libraries that show some revealed preferences, which would be particularly interesting because prices and availability of the books are identical and production values are not a concern. The development of a kind of cultural critical mass might be seen in the large language groups - I'm thinking Cree and Inuktitut - but how would you measure the economic impact of that exactly? I'm not sure).

I know a lot of the literature on bilingual education looks at trade impacts. Not so helpful. But the concept of trade in the context of Indigenous communities might instead be translated instead into business formation and institutional development, particularly the development of regional (that is, between Indigenous communities) businesses and governance structures. These structures are more likely to exist (and to be more successful) in areas where use of Indigenous languages are more common. But there are a lot of conflating factors again, it would have to be handled deftly.

[Frances Woolley]

Cheyenne,

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond. Library data is a neat idea. I share your concerns about using hypothetical willingness-to-pay or willingness-to-accept questions as a form of evaluation. Erik Snowberg gave a State of the Art lecture at the most recent Canadian Economics Association meetings - one of the results he presented found almost no correlation between WTP and WTA measures in survey data (i.e. people's reported to WTP for X was pretty much uncorrelated with their WTA for X). As the saying goes - ask a hypothetical question, get a hypothetical answer.

Looking at language as a foundation for good governance and institutional development is a really fascinating idea. Do you have references on the literature on bilingual education? I did come across this old piece by Francois Vaillancourt and F. Grin on economic impact of language policy in Basque regions: http://edoc.vifapol.de/opus/volltexte/2008/796/pdf/monograph_2.pdf, but not a lot else.

[Jacques René Giguère]

Too busy with important family matters to comment with profundity. But there were a lot a speculation (and maybe studies) on the role of Radio-Canada radio and tv services on the birth of Québec modern culture and the Quiet Revolution.
And Maurice Duplessis was a master of communications,see

http://www.septentrion.qc.ca/catalogue/duplessis-piece-manquante-d-une-legende
Who knows what First Nations programming will lead to?

[hm]

It's a valid option.

[Cheyenne Martin]

Unfortunately, most of what I see in the economics literature relating to bilingual education relates to trade (Fidrmuc and Fidrmuc for example - easy to do with an EU dataset). There is also a literature on decolonization that is specific to Indigenous communities. But my head starts to swim when I read journal articles on decolonization and resistance to neo-liberalism, I don't find a lot of data in them so I tend not to read them (there could be some interesting stuff out there that I don't know about). There is a developmental economics literature that sees improved results from traditional institutions (Diaz-Cayeros had something recently from Mexico) and negative effects from governance in colonial languages. Arcand and Grin had a study where they argue that linguistic "fragmentation" in Sub-Saharan Africa (not speaking a colonial language, basically) is associated with higher levels of GDP per capita. But as is always the case, the economic topics relating to Indigenous communities are under-explored in a Canadian context. I'm very interested in any approaches you might come up with - please share your eventual brilliance.

[Frances Woolley]

Cheyene - thanks for those links, I wasn't aware of Fidrmuc's work, or Diaz-Cayeros'. Interesting stuff.

[cm]

Late to the party, but it doesn't just preserve the language, but strengthens the respective ethnic (tribal?) identities. Is this considered a beneficial effect? Europe, with its nation states founded by mostly forcefully "unifying" different ethnic groups and regional cultures, has always since had undercurrents of regional identities, and a degree of "us vs them" perhaps not enmity but comparison. At least in Germany, this mostly takes the shape of ascribing supposed character and personality traits as well as lifestyle preferences based on regional background or observed language dialect.

With the German reunification, East Germans experienced basically a complete loss of their former national and to an extent their cultural identity (liked or not liked). At the risk of trivializing, it could be compared to leaving (or being relieved of) a bad relationship, but now you are on your own. But OTOH it had been an identity and culture that deliberately suppressed prior history and prior regional identities, and presented a very selective and "managed" view on the cultural heritage. This vacuum was then filled with a search for local and regional roots, and pre-"communist" historical backgrounds, down to the level of city ditricts and suburbs.

People always want relatable social context. Will your tribal people be better off with only a national identity? It will also reduce the variety for the "mainstream" - which is also somewhat of a distinction as long as other distinctions exist.

[Robots2005 AI2015]

Media can be powerful. In addition to humour and military college, skyscrapers helped turn their election. The Armoury near Valour Rd was built like a castle. I glimpsed two hallways I hadn't seen in decades and it made me cry hours later simply because a piece of me was gone for so long; it is 1/2 of why counselling is so tough. And that was just a school and house.
Natives were just like the Celtics, who brought democracy and merit based hiring to Scotland when the Irish kicked out a Monk. But without psychology in written words, there is no morality, so the television network is really about how to take the best of what S.Enlightenment culture offers, and make it better. London knew Hitler would rise because he knew about toughness. Natives in rural reserves are missing universities; even one minor encyclopedia entry can tell you minerals radiate at random wavelengths and more as are hotter. So a superconductor radiometer wire between gliders can prevent some AI and most robot labs without needing robots; reserves are well power positioned here. Given demographics, APTN is maybe the 3rd most important TV channel. But seeing hallways through a window made me cry.

[Robots2005 AI2015]

I can narrow down the value of APTN but don't watch it save movies. I have the #2 station worth more than the next 5. #1 BBC let China know about Japanese atrocities while NYC radio stations were preaching neutrality. The movie "Hells Angels" certainly was worth 1/1000th of the world's value as Stalin might've gotten nuclear scientists. Some of the USA stations were negative value under GWB.
"Dance Me Outside" is exactly what the inclusive circle culture was missing while corn was being domesticated and salmon smoked; was about literacy, drama, and education. You can use the best of distant lands as role models. So I guess the biggest need is teeny Universities and Colleges and the need for a teacher to teach two or more subjects. The key is a culture of reading; it is self-perpetuating. I see the future as quantum entangled particles on airplanes and AI keyword sensors on wallpaper. Future MRI's on scalps that transmit ID and brain states, rationality and memory, into the curved air for global questions. Brain states that affect referendum weighting.
Native culture will instinctively preserve ecosystems from synthetic biology, but are the programmes successful in encouraging fields that attack future WMDs? I doubt North of 60 encountered a biolab, but a show with an Indian CSIS Officer would.