Hello Eliane, tell me about...
Well, besides your life in Cuba
and everything
What do you think and what problems do you have
with the coverage you do for Global Voices
about the island?
Well, I have written for Global Voices since 2010
when the regional Spanish editor
asked me if I wanted to collaborate with Global Voices
and I began to write
about some very sad news for us about
a plane crash
in a province called Sacti Spiritus.
From that moment on
I started to try a bit to reconstruct
the voices of what was being said
by the bloggers on the island, the people who had Internet access,
still people with limited means
and the connection was quite slow.
Currently, the main problem I have
with the coverage of Global Voices
is that Global Voices tries to give voice to the blogosphere
and Internet spaces,
but many times things happen in Cuba
and there's a bit of a delay for news to arrive to Internet spaces.
Especially because of this technology limitation
or this limit with the use of the Internet.
So we are asking ourselves during the summit
if we wait for it to arrive... and lose a week
or try to start, move foward with what is happening,
as if it were a live coverage of the events,
without having a reflection from Social Media yet.
It is a debate that might not
come up much in other countries
but for us in Cuba,
it makes up a considerable part of our day-to-day lives.
We also try to make the posts as influential as possible.
Cuba is quite controversial in terms of politics
and there are pretty distant spaces in the blogosphere
that are opposed to each other and
it is a bit of an everyday challange
to try to make the coverage of Cuba
as neutral as possible,
although in my personal opinion about our reality
this is something that is rather hard to achieve.
Well, that it is as honest and balanced possible.
Of the articles you have written,
what reactions have you gathered,
if you will,
through comments
from the website or by other means?
Well, almost all the articles that I write for Global Voices receive comments,
rather controversial comments,
but we always try to respond to all of
these comments about the issues.
The most interesting thing that has happened to me
is that a lot of people who try to contact me
by e-mail
to learn a little more about Cuba
from what I write for Global Voices.
And also from the series I wrote
about the Wikileaks cables, I mean
what the cables said... about Cuba.
It generated many comments and lots of replies
within the official media.
They started to copy the exact same post
in the mainstream media
because I've tried to do a bit of an analysis in three posts
that I essentially wrote
to see what issues were being talked about
though a bit of a quantitative analysis at the beginning.
Then, briefly explaining what the issues were,
the postures on those topics,
and it was very interesting
because it was published
exclusively for Global Voices
and suddenly a lot of other media organizations started to publish it.
Another interesting thing is the translations.
It's not as exciting or new for me
to see the posts translated into English.
But to go in one day and see the posts
...in Magyar or Aymara
or in languages that are not very known in the world
is incredibly positive because you know
the people in the places where these languages are spoke are reading about Cuba
or at least they have the possibility
of receiving these stories from Cuba.
Do you take part in the Cuban blogosphere yourself?
What is your relationship with your parents like?
Being part of the Cuban blogosphere is complicated,
it's a complex matter.
Because it's a blogosphere, as I said,
it's growing constantly.
Currently, Cuba has almost 600 Cuba-based blogs.
It might not seem like much,
but for a country with only 14%
Internet penetration, it's considerable,
because there are people who are dedicating their free time
who are using their Internet connection at work
because they hardly ever have connections at home,
to reveal a bit about the reality in Cuba.
So, to suddenly be immersed in these dynamics
at the time in 2008 when I had recently created my blog,
was something very solitary, I mean, there were not many people,
not many bloggers
and we were just starting to talk to each other.
But in 2012,
face-to-face meetings have been held for bloggers in Cuba.
There has already been citizen action,
such us the cleaning of the Almendares river
that was organized completely from social networks,
and people it gathered from both inside and outside of Cuba.
Citizen computer literacy programs dealing with
technological issues have been carried out.
for people who have a bit less knowledge.
And so, it has started to be to be a big community
where it's still difficult to reach a consensus,
but where extremely interesting debates are created,
where very productive dialogues are generated,
where we are learning a little
...to be more influential,
to respect others' voices,
to understand that every blog is an individual experience,
a unique experience
that does not have to be like others.
In a way , we teach each other respect for others,
to understand the terms such as freedom of expression,
essentially, such as respect for differences,
and for the media. In Cuba, I don't think there are media organizations, there is only the government media.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
If, there are the official media organizations, which are all state-owned.
Official Cuban media organizations belong to state institutions.
The Central Workers Union of Cuba, for example, has its media organization,
the Communist Party of Cuba has its media organzation,
the Young Communist Union also has its own media press...
As for university students,
they have the Alma Mater magazine,
and on top of that, almost every sector is represented
in some kind of press media,
but if... all the recognized press media organizations are state-owned
the blogosphere's relationship with the state-owned media
is very interesting,
even if in the beginning
they weren't very hear or read
because there were very few.
Nowadays, we are fairly, indeed, quite read and even quoted.
Cuban bloggers are interviewed by the press,
and there are even many issues
that form part of citizens' concern
that was first born in the blogosphere,
and then, the press or traditional journalism makes them theirs.
They do research, deeper searches,
and then a dialogue begins
between bloggers and the traditional press.
I don't think the relationship is distasteful
and it doesn't discredit to bloggers either,
I mean, by the act of being bloggers.
Bloggers are discredited
by certain political trends,
but these political arguments are not the basis
for being a blogger
or using new technologies to tell about your reality,
as it may happen in other countries
where not having a journalism degree
can invalidate a citizen, or something like that.
I don't think this is the case in Cuba, yet.
At least not this year, for the moment.
Thank you, Elaine.