Rising Voices » Interview http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org Helping the global population join the global conversation Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:05:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 [Video] Interview with Rodrigo Nogueira of Viva Favela http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/11/24/video-interview-with-rodrigo-nogueira-of-viva-favela/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/11/24/video-interview-with-rodrigo-nogueira-of-viva-favela/#comments Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:17:56 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1968

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Rodrigo Nogueira is the Editor of Viva Favela, a Rio de Janeiro-based citizen journalism project of Viva Rio. Viva Favela's coverage of the aftermath following a helicopter which was shot down by drug dealers in Rio De Janeiro was featured on Global Voices earlier this month (and translated into German, French, Chinese, and Swahili). In this interview Rodrigo discusses the history, goals, and future of the organization.

Transcript:

My name is Rodrigo Nogueira. I'm the editor of Viva Favela. Viva Favela is a project of Viva Rio which started in 2001 with the idea to talk about the favela (slum) from a different perspective. A different perspective from the media. Talking about the people who live in the favelas and produced by people who live in the favelas too. We work on this in two ways. We have professional journalists helping community leaders that live in favelas to become amateur journalists and with the passing of time many of these community leaders became professionals and began working for news [agencies] when they left Viva Favela.

David: When people learn how to publish content online, what are some of the topics that they tend to cover? Rodrigo: We have every Monday a discussion, an editorial meeting, to talk about what subjects we are producing this week. Some subjects are very strong. For example the helicopter that was shot down by the drug dealers in Rio three weeks ago. So this was a hot topic that everyone wanted to talk about. So we have to do this our own way. How does this episode reflect the daily lives of the communities? When something of this magnitude goes to the mainstream media the state [police] go very hard at the communities. A lot of people could be shot by some police operation in the favela. And the people who live there talk about this. Especially we talk about daily life. Things that you don't see in the mainstream media. Our focus is this.

David: The content that they publish online … has that led to any changes in the community offline?

Rodrigo: Yes, because the people who produce for Viva Favela are very in touch with the issues of the community. The whole community starts to talk with them. They see it as a channel of expression for the community. For example, we did a story about a slum. They are very poor. And when this was published in Viva Favela some mainstream journalists saw the story and started to talk to the government of the state of Rio that said to the public that they are going to do something to change this slum.

David: Some of the content that they have produced has been featured on Global Voices before, right?

Rodrigo: For the first time. I think that this internet culture is very interesting because I was in a conference in Mexico and I started a conversation with the Latin America editor of Global Voices. So he introduced me to the people who are working here in Brazil. So this meeting started by email and now we're discussing this here at the Digital Culture Forum in Brazil … it's very good because something that started by email and now is [in person].

David: And what was that Global Voices story about?

Rodrigo: it was about the helicopter. The story of how the people are seeing the shooting down of the helicopter in their own community. People are very afraid because the police response is very strong in these poor communities.

David: If people had read that article on Global Voices, is that different coverage than they would see in the mainstream media?

Rodrigo: Yes, I think so. Because in this article on Global Voices I watched different perspectives from people who don't have any economical interest in talking about this. David: Now that you've already had some success training citizen journalists and getting them to produce content what are your future goals as an organization? Rodrigo: For us, our main goal is to create a collaborative platform. Because in Rio, for example, we have 1,000 favelas. And we don't have a lot of people working in the newsroom right now to cover 1,000 favelas. So our idea is to create a platform so that every person in a different favela can talk about their own reality. We want to create a network of favelas. Our expectation is to create a network of favelas that can [bring] together different people from different places so that they can discuss their own issues by their own perspectives. We want to create this platform We hope that in 2010 we already have this running and everyone can participate.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/11/24/video-interview-with-rodrigo-nogueira-of-viva-favela/feed/ 1 [Video] Interview with Eric Newton of Knight Foundation http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-eric-newton-of-knight-foundation/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-eric-newton-of-knight-foundation/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:31:30 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1811

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Eric Newton is the vice president of the journalism program at Knight Foundation. He describes the annual $5 million Knight News Challenge, which aims to bring about news innovation by supporting new technologies and techniques to bring news and information to specific geographic communities around the world. He offers some examples of projects that have been funded including Rhodes University in South Africa, Freedom Fone in Zimbabwe, Ushahidi in Kenya, and the Sochi Olympics citizen journalism project in Russia, and also provides some tips for applicants seeking funding.

The deadline for this year's News Challenge is October 15 so if you have a good idea, apply now.

Transcript:

Eric: My name is Eric Newton. I’m the Vice President of the journalism program at Knight Foundation. The Knight News Challenge is a kind of open, international, research and development contest for news innovation. And the idea behind it is that the digital revolution has turned information and news upside down and inside out, and things are changing so rapidly that no one - not traditional media companies, not even the entrepreneur community - can keep up with the pace of change. So our foundation thought that if we have an open, international contest and collected thousands of entries and picked the very best ideas for news innovation that it would help speed the process of moving good news and information into the digital age.

David: How does the Knight News Challenge relate to media development? Or does it?

Eric: Well, it relates to media development in that each of the entries needs to have four key elements. 1) It needs to involve news and information. The kind of news and information that people need to run their communities and their lives. 2) It needs to involve specific geographic communities. So it is not about technology platforms that aren’t related to a specific community - a place where people live and work and run their government. 3) It needs to involve digital innovation; something new. And because of the fourth element, it is very helpful for media development because the fourth element is that whatever technology is developed is then free and open source, and usable by anybody anywhere in the world for news and information in their communities.

David: Does innovation have the same meaning in all countries and all contexts?

Eric: No. Things that are new in one culture might be quite old in another. But we don’t think that it’s the job of the News Challenge to try to bring all of the new developments to everyone in the world. We think that the governments will do that and businesses will do that. There are already structures involving millions and even billions of dollars in media that will spread the innovations. What we’re looking for are things that no one has tried before. No one meaning no one. Those innovations can be technological, but they can also be innovations of technique. If someone in a culture outside the United States says, ‘hey, we can combine these technologies in a unique way in our community’, that is innovation.

So, when Rhodes University in South Africa says ‘we can develop a cell phone citizen journalism program in the township, we can create a web platform for the English-language newspaper, we can create a new web platform for the Afrikaans radio station, and then we can digitally connect all three of these things so that for the first time this community can have a unified news system’ - well, that wasn’t any new technology necessarily. That was taking things and putting them into action in specific communities because of the unique characteristics of that community.

David: Can you give a couple other examples of News Challenge winners internationally, from outside the US?

Eric: Sure, in Sochi, where the Olympics are coming, a citizen journalism project is in the process of organizing the community to talk about whether the olympics are a good thing or a bad thing for the town, or something in between. A major citizen journalism project in Russia is not the norm - so that should be an interesting experiment. In Zimbabwe, there is an experiment in mobile news distribution called Freedom Fone. In Kenya, Ushahidi is experimenting with data visualization and real-time mapping of citizen journalism contributions so that if major news events are occurring you can see the reports that are coming in from all quarters and get a visual idea of what is happening. Those are just some of the examples.

The News Challenge is open internationally because the idea is that anyone anywhere can come up with a good idea. We haven’t done as many international projects as we’d like to because a lot of people think that they have new ideas, but really they just don’t know that it is already happening somewhere else and the technology already exists, and in fact models already exist. So nothing new needs to be developed. What needs to happen in that case is that aid programs or the commercial sector or any number of other funders need to step in to spread things that we already know work.

David: We are about one week from the deadline of this year’s News Challenge. What recommendations and advice would you give to applicants?

Eric: Well, I think that the main thing to remember is that we’re looking for projects with all the elements: great news and information, great digital innovation, specific geographic community and free and open source sharing of what is learned and developed. We frequently will get project proposals that are very strong in one of the categories, but weak in the others. The best thing that anyone can do is partner with experts in the other areas and do their homework in the other areas if they themselves are only experts in only one of the areas.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-eric-newton-of-knight-foundation/feed/ 0 [Video] Interview with Amadou M. Ba of AllAfrica.com http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-amadou-m-ba-of-allafrica-com/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-amadou-m-ba-of-allafrica-com/#comments Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:55:26 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1807

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Amadou M. Ba is the co-founder and president of AllAfrica.com, the largest online aggregator and distributor of news from Sub-Saharan Africa in English and French. He is also the acting executive director of the African Media Initiative, which aims to strengthen Africa's media sector by bringing together owners and operators of major media outlets to collaborate on training programs, seek investment opportunities, advocate for better policy, and improve media research. Amadou tells us about the history of AllAfrica.com, the major challenges facing African leaders in the media sector, and how funders can most effectively support a vibrant media space in Africa.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/10/video-interview-with-amadou-m-ba-of-allafrica-com/feed/ 0 [Video] Interview with Felipe Vaz from Instituto Overmundo http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/09/video-interview-with-felipe-vaz-from-instituto-overmundo/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/09/video-interview-with-felipe-vaz-from-instituto-overmundo/#comments Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:08:59 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1794

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Felipe Vaz is the coordinator of Instituto Overmundo, which promotes access to knowledge and cultural diversity in Brazil through innovative practices in communication, intellectual property, and technology. Felipe describes Brazil's “LAN house revolution.” These LAN houses initially began as local networks where (mostly) young people would go to play multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. More recently they have connected to the internet and are used for social networking, chatting, and job searching. The estimated 90,000 LAN houses across Brazil account for 50% of available internet access in the country. These are illegal operations which don't have business permits and don't pay taxes. The Brazilian government so far has taken an adversarial position toward the LAN houses, arguing that they encourage young people to miss class. But others, like Brazilian blogger Jeimy Remir, think that LAN houses have a positive impact both for their owners and customers.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/09/video-interview-with-felipe-vaz-from-instituto-overmundo/feed/ 1 [Video] Interview with Vanessa Mazal http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/08/video-interview-with-vanessa-mazal/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/08/video-interview-with-vanessa-mazal/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:12:44 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1779

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Vanessa Mazal is a program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Global Development Program. In this interview she talks about the differences and complementary nature of media development and media for development. She also tells us about a new Gates Foundation initiative in partnership with Highway Africa.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/08/video-interview-with-vanessa-mazal/feed/ 0 [Video] Interview with David Hoffman of Internews http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/07/video-interview-with-david-hoffman-of-internews/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/07/video-interview-with-david-hoffman-of-internews/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:32:20 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1774

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David Hoffman is the founder and president of Internews, one of the first media development organizations. In this video David explains how Internews got its start by coordinating a two-way satellite link-up between Soviet youth in Moscow and Americans at the 1982 US Festival sponsored by Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak. He goes on to describe more of the history of the media development field, how funders can both help and hurt, and the role of citizen journalism in media development and civic participation.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/10/07/video-interview-with-david-hoffman-of-internews/feed/ 1 [Video] Interview with Pablo Flores http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/09/22/video-interview-with-pablo-flores/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/09/22/video-interview-with-pablo-flores/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:32:42 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/?p=1692

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The day after Pablo Flores gave his presentation at the Ars Electronica Symposium about cloud technologies and education we were able to sit down with him for a few minutes to find out more about his projects and his current year-long sabbatical in which he will be visiting OLPC projects around the world and creating a multimedia website which compares his observations from one to one computing programs in different countries. You can find out more about the Blogging Since Infancy project and explore the blogs of participating teachers and students.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2009/09/22/video-interview-with-pablo-flores/feed/ 1 [Podcast] Bolivian Voices Day http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/10/podcast-bolivian-voices-day/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/10/podcast-bolivian-voices-day/#comments Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:24:43 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/10/podcast-bolivian-voices-day/ 4A3AE990-2473-4349-9034-C9B5493AD754.jpg

On April 19, at eight different sites throughout six Bolivian cities, Voces Bolivianas will host Bolivian Voices Day, a one-day synchronized event that will train dozens of Bolivians how to start their own blogs and participate in both the national and global online conversations.

In this podcast with Voces Bolivianas founder, Eduardo Ávila, we hear about the closing ceremony of the workshop series in Santa Cruz as well as why Voces Bolivianas decided to organize a one-day training at various sites around the country.

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]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/10/podcast-bolivian-voices-day/feed/ 2 Mialy Andriamananjara Discusses Foko http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/02/mialy-andriamananjara-discusses-foko/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/02/mialy-andriamananjara-discusses-foko/#comments Thu, 03 Apr 2008 01:16:26 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/02/mialy-andriamananjara-discusses-foko/

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A couple weeks ago we spoke with Lova Rakotomalala, one of the four coordinators of the FOKO Madagascar blog outreach program. This week we feature a video interview with Lova's blog outreach partner in crime, Mialy Andriamananjara.

]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/04/02/mialy-andriamananjara-discusses-foko/feed/ 5 Kathryn Ward on the Benefits of Blogging for Bangladeshi Women http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/03/15/kathryn-ward-on-the-benefits-of-blogging-for-bangladeshi-women/ http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/03/15/kathryn-ward-on-the-benefits-of-blogging-for-bangladeshi-women/#comments Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:57:24 +0000 David Sasaki http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/03/15/kathryn-ward-on-the-benefits-of-blogging-for-bangladeshi-women/ For this week's Rising Voices podcast we listen in on a live interview with Nari Jibon founder Kathryn Ward from WDBX's Big Muddy radio program in Carbondale, Illinois. Kathy describes how Nari Jibon got its start and how they've been incorporating blogging and citizen media into their English and computer training classes to give women in Dhaka, Bangladesh a stronger voice and community online.

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]]> http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/blog/2008/03/15/kathryn-ward-on-the-benefits-of-blogging-for-bangladeshi-women/feed/ 5