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Hello Eliane, tell me about...

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Well, besides your life in Cuba

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and everything

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What do you think and what problems do you have

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with the coverage you do for Global Voices

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about the island?

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Well, I have written for Global Voices since 2010

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when the regional Spanish editor

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asked me if I wanted to collaborate with Global Voices

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and I began to write

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about some news that was very sad for us about

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a plane crash

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in a province called Sacti Spiritus.

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From that moment on

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I started to try to sort of reconstruct

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the voices of what was being said

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by bloggers on the island, the people who had Internet access,

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still people with limited means

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and the connection was quite slow.

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Currently, the main problem I have

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with the coverage of Global Voices

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is that Global Voices tries to give a voice to the blogosphere

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and Internet spaces,

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but often things happen in Cuba

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and there's a bit of a delay for news to arrive to Internet spaces.

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Especially because of this technological limitation

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or this limitation on Internet use.

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So we are wondering during the summit

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if we should wait for it to arrive... and lose a week

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or try to start, move foward with what is happening,

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as if it were a live coverage of the events,

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without having a reflection from Social Media yet.

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It's a debate that might not

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come up much in other countries

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but for us in Cuba,

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it forms a considerable part of [br]our day-to-day lives.

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We also try to make the posts[br]as influential as possible.

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Cuba is quite controversial in terms of politics

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and there are pretty distant spaces[br]in the blogosphere

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that are opposed to each other and

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it is a bit of an everyday challange

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to try to make the coverage of Cuba

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as neutral as possible,

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although in my personal opinion about our reality

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this is something that is rather hard to achieve.

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Well, that it is as honest and balanced possible.

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Of the articles you have written,

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what reactions have you gathered,

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if you will,

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through comments

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from the website or by other means?

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Well, almost all the articles that I write for Global Voices receive comments,

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rather controversial comments,

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but we always try to respond to all of

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these comments about the issues.

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The most interesting thing that has happened to me

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is that a lot of people who try to contact me

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by e-mail

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to learn a little more about Cuba

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from what I write for Global Voices.

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And also from the series I wrote

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about the Wikileaks cables, I mean

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what the cables said... about Cuba.

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It generated many comments and lots of replies

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amongst the official media.

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They started to copy the exact same post

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in the mainstream media

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because I've tried to do a bit of an analysis in three posts

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that I essentially wrote

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to see what issues were being talked about

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though a bit of a quantitative analysis at the beginning.

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Then, briefly explaining what the issues were,

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the postures on those topics,

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and it was very interesting

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because it was published

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exclusively for Global Voices

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and suddenly a lot of other media organizations started to publish it.

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Another interesting thing is the translations.

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It's not as exciting or new for me

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to see the posts translated into English.

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But to go in one day and see the posts

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...in Magyar or Aymara

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or in languages that are not very known in the world

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is incredibly positive because you know

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the people in the places where these languages are spoke are reading about Cuba

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or at least they have the possibility

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of receiving these stories from Cuba.

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Do you take part in the Cuban blogosphere yourself?

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What is your relationship with your parents like?

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Being part of the Cuban blogosphere is complicated,

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it's a complex matter.

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Because it's a blogosphere, as I said,

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it's growing constantly.

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Currently, Cuba has almost 600 Cuban-based blogs.

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It might not seem like much,

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but for a country with only 14%

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Internet penetration, it's considerable,

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because there are people who are [br]dedicating their free time

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who are using their Internet connection at work

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because they hardly ever have connections at home,

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to reveal a bit about the reality in Cuba.

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So, to suddenly be immersed in these dynamics

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at the time in 2008 when I had recently created my blog,

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was something very solitary, I mean, there were not many people,

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not many bloggers

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and we were just starting to talk to each other.

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But in 2012,

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face-to-face meetings have been held for bloggers in Cuba.

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There has already been citizen action,

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such us the cleaning of the Almendares river

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that was organized completely from social networks,

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and it gathered people from both inside and outside of Cuba.

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Citizen computer literacy programs dealing with

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technological issues have been carried out.

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for people who have a bit less knowledge.

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And so, it has started to be to be a big community

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where it's still difficult to reach a consensus,

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but where extremely interesting debates are created,

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where very productive dialogues are generated,

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where we are learning a little

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...to be more influential,

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to respect others' voices,

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to understand that every blog is an individual experience,

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a unique experience

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that does not have to be like others.

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In a way , we teach each other respect for others,

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to understand terms such as freedom of expression,

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essentially, such as respect for differences,

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and for the media. In Cuba, I don't think there are media organizations, there is only the government media.

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Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Yes, there are the official media organizations, which are all state-owned.

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Official Cuban media organizations belong to state institutions.

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The Central Workers Union of Cuba,[br]for example, has its media organization,

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the Communist Party of Cuba has its media organzation,

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the Young Communist Union also has [br]its own media press...

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As for university students,

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they have the Alma Mater magazine,

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and on top of that, almost every sector[br]is represented

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in some kind of press media,

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but if... all the recognized press media organizations are state-owned

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the blogosphere's relationship with the state-owned media

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is very interesting,

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even if in the beginning

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they weren't very heard or read

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because there were very few.

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Nowadays, we are, indeed, quite read and even quoted.

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Cuban bloggers are interviewed by the press,

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and there are even many issues

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that form part of citizens' concern

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that were first born in the blogosphere,

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and then, the press or traditional journalism makes them theirs.

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They do research, deeper searches,

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and then a dialogue begins

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between bloggers and the traditional press.

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I don't think the relationship is distasteful

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and it doesn't discredit bloggers either,

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I mean, by the act of being bloggers.

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Bloggers are discredited

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by certain political trends,

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but these political arguments are not the basis

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for being a blogger

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or for using new technologies to tell others about your reality,

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as it may happen in other countries

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where not having a journalism degree

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can invalidate a citizen, or something like that.

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I don't think this is the case in Cuba, yet.

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At least not this year, for the moment.

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Thank you, Elaine.