Maori stereotypes 'reflected' by internet use

Myths about Maori being music lovers and players of games are being bolstered by research showing many visit entertainment-based websites.

Sites offering rock music, youth information and game downloads were top of the net hit parade for Maori, according to research measured by Nielsen/NetRatings in October.

While race, gender and physical appearance are meant to vanish in the web's democracy, it seems that ethnic stereotyping may be supported by these figures.

Other figures issued by Nielsen/NetRatings indicate that men tend to look at car, sport and technology sites while women visit pages dealing with the arts, gardening and fashion.

Mark Ottaway, Nielsen/NetRatings New Zealand managing director, said 6.24 per cent of October's New Zealand internet users were Maori, or identified as such when measured by his company's market intelligence survey.

The survey sampled 270,000 people visiting about 200 sites.

Music information site NoiZyland's proportion of Maori visitors was 18.3 per cent, almost three times the average for that month of other groups, he said.

Nielsen surveys about 200 major sites in New Zealand and the figures for this survey were generated by random pop-up question boxes.

Ottaway said that by placing a cookie on the browser of the visitor's personal computer, visits to other sites could also be tracked.

He said the figures released applied only to October, they were pretty accurate as the survey has been running for almost 18 months.

The results were anonymous, he said.

Work was being done to hone the survey so that geographic access and other information such as income and age, were being researched.

Alan Te Moranga Litchfield, lecturer in information systems at Auckland University of Technology and a member of Ngati Whatua, said the figures posed more questions than answers.

He has been developing computer-based modelling systems for tribal genealogy in IT systems.

Litchfield said he could not dispute the figures but the accuracy of the view they presented of Maori internet use was likely to be flawed because the service did not track sites that were outside the mainstream.

There were obviously other sites Maori were going to, and the system did not say how many people opted out of the pop-up questions.

There was also no information about age, he said, and if the survey was capturing young people it might be that they were looking at youth-oriented activities.

He said figures on downloading games may indicate that Maori were using the internet to consume rather than find information.

That kind of browsing was not about taking advantage of the technology for anything other than to consume, he said.

Maori were falling behind in this area and it belied the fact that historically they were quick on the uptake of technology, said Litchfield.

This was illustrated by agriculture and trade between missionary Samuel Marsden and Nga Puhi between 1815 and 1830.

During that time Marsden depended on Maori for food crops, but that sense of enterprise and uptake was now lost.

He said one reason for the skew of figures might be the barriers Maori faced when it came to IT, because some of the largest populations of Maori were in areas with scant broadband access.

The figures also did not measure things such as iwi-specific sites. Several Maori groups, such as Te Rarawa, Nga Puhi and Ngai Tahu, were developing communication channels with their members.

They had systems under which geographically dispersed whanau or family could register with their iwi and maintain link, he said.

Litchfield said the Government had recognised that barriers existed for Maori on the net. But policies still did not provide sufficient pathways even for them to gain entry to supporting roles in IT.

"The ICT strategy outlined by the Government is focused on creating large multinational companies, but does little to support grass roots developments, which is where many hapu are centred."

"The result of this is that those initiatives get little or no support from government agencies and corporate entities, which can be seen in the small numbers of new university entrants of Maori into IT and computer science in general."

Te Puni Kokiri - the Ministry of Maori Development - has commissioned a report from Nielsen/NetRatings on Maori internet use, but its findings are still to be revealed.

Te Takaka Keegan, computer science lecturer at the University of Waikato, said the figures showed some insight into Maori browsing but missed out on non-commercial sites.

Theoretically, Maori internet use should be higher because they make up 20 per cent of the New Zealand population.

Maori are also high users of other chip-based devices such as cellphones, Xbox and PlayStation.

He said it was unlikely that Nielsen would survey bilingual sites in Maori and English.

"On those sites, people will work with the default language, and often if it is set to Maori when it has been in English before people do not change back."

He had done no statistical research on the type of sites Maori go to, but anecdotal evidence suggested they were using the internet for research rather than entertainment.

It was becoming critical that more Maori create specific content for their people.

Hit parade

* According to the Nielsen/NetRatings survey, 6.24 per cent of October's internet users were Maori.

* Music information site NoiZyland's proportion of Maori visitors was 18.3 per cent, almost three times the average of other groups.