'Blogs are Improving Citizen Concerns'
by Rosario Lizana
You’re riding on the highway at maximum speed (120 K/H), talking with a friend, calm. Suddenly a public bus passes you so fast that curiosity gets ahold of you: how fast is this bus is going? And the driver decides to follow the bus.
Carlos Verdugo (ES) posts the experience: “We were literally between Tongoy and Los Vilos, at the maximum speed allowed, when a greased lightning was coming to our vehicle to pass us, and we ask Is a bird? No, is it a plane?, No. Is it superman? No, it's Ramos Cholele (a bus company in the region)”.
He continues describing that they followed the bus to discover the speed. 170 K/H. This is not the end of the story. They record it with mobile and post it, eliciting more than 60 comments sharing the concern. El Morroccotudo (ES), a weblog newspaper from the region posts it to.
So, various media outlets ask them for permission to use the video.
In the last few weeks, a house robbery inspired a man to build a blog (ES) for expressing his concern about the crime in Chile. Students coordinate national strikes by blogs and fotoblogs. Neighbourhoods that demand the release of a homeless man and for spread the information build a community blog and web page. Last week, a bloggers campaigned for the victims of a flood in the south. Chile has 16 million citizens. So, for other countries these should be everyday responses, but for us it is a way of adjusting media to social concerns.
While the Chilean media have still been slow to adopt blogs and other technologies, citizens have started using them, and slowly blogs are starting to be the sources of information once occupied by the traditional media.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/21/blogs-are-improving-citizen-concerns/
by Rosario Lizana
You’re riding on the highway at maximum speed (120 K/H), talking with a friend, calm. Suddenly a public bus passes you so fast that curiosity gets ahold of you: how fast is this bus is going? And the driver decides to follow the bus.
Carlos Verdugo (ES) posts the experience: “We were literally between Tongoy and Los Vilos, at the maximum speed allowed, when a greased lightning was coming to our vehicle to pass us, and we ask Is a bird? No, is it a plane?, No. Is it superman? No, it's Ramos Cholele (a bus company in the region)”.
He continues describing that they followed the bus to discover the speed. 170 K/H. This is not the end of the story. They record it with mobile and post it, eliciting more than 60 comments sharing the concern. El Morroccotudo (ES), a weblog newspaper from the region posts it to.
So, various media outlets ask them for permission to use the video.
In the last few weeks, a house robbery inspired a man to build a blog (ES) for expressing his concern about the crime in Chile. Students coordinate national strikes by blogs and fotoblogs. Neighbourhoods that demand the release of a homeless man and for spread the information build a community blog and web page. Last week, a bloggers campaigned for the victims of a flood in the south. Chile has 16 million citizens. So, for other countries these should be everyday responses, but for us it is a way of adjusting media to social concerns.
While the Chilean media have still been slow to adopt blogs and other technologies, citizens have started using them, and slowly blogs are starting to be the sources of information once occupied by the traditional media.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/07/21/blogs-are-improving-citizen-concerns/
