Aboriginal Multi-Media Society

The Aboriginal Multi-Media Society (AMMSA) is an Aboriginal publisher in Canada. AMMSA was established in 1983 under the Alberta Societies Act and launched its first publication in March 1983 – simply titled AMMSA. The name of this publication was later changed to Windspeaker in March 1986.

Publications

AMMSA abandoned producing paper products, making the decision to set up a news website.

History

AMMSA published a number of monthly publications listed below

• Windspeaker – Featuring national content; publishing from March 1983 - 2016

AMMSA published the following provincial publications on a monthly basis:

• Alberta Sweetgrass – News and events from Indigenous communities in Alberta

Published monthly from December 1993 - 2016

• Ontario Birchbark - News and events from Indigenous communities in Ontario

Published monthly from January 2000 -2016

• Raven's Eye - News and events from Indigenous communities in British Columbia and the Yukon

Published monthly from March 1997 - 2016

• Saskatchewan Sage - News and events from Indigenous communities in Saskatchewan

Published monthly from October 1996 - 2016

AMMSA digitized all of the published articles in its paper products dating back to 1983 and makes them available online as part of an archive of 20,000+ news and information articles. These archives have grown to more than 30,000 articles.

Radio

AMMSA also operates a radio network, Windspeaker Radio, for Indigenous listeners throughout Alberta. The network studios were originally in Lac La Biche, but are now based in Edmonton. A new transmitter in Edmonton was licensed by the CRTC in 2008, and became the CFWE network's primary station when it launched in July 2009.^[1]

On June 14, 2017, the CRTC granted AMMSA licenses to operate Type B Native FM radio stations aimed at urban Indigenous audiences in Edmonton at 89.3 MHz as the Raven CIWE-FM (which signed on in 2021), and in Calgary at 88.1 MHz as CJWE-FM (which began broadcasting in 2018). Both frequencies were previously licensed to Aboriginal Voices Radio Network but were revoked in 2015 due to compliance issues.^[2][3]