Talking to Elaine Díaz about the Cuban Blogosphere.

Talking to Elaine Díaz about the Cuban blogosphere at the 2012 GV Summit. Pride Inn Raphta Road, Nairobi, Kenia, July 3, 2012, 2012, 3.22 p.m.

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 news that was very sad for us about

a plane crash

in a province called Sacti Spiritus.

From that moment on

I started to try to sort of reconstruct

the voices of what was being said

by 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 a voice to the blogosphere

and Internet spaces,

but often things happen in Cuba

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

Especially because of this technological limitation

or this limitation on Internet use.

So we are wondering during the summit

if we should 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's a debate that might not

come up much in other countries

but for us in Cuba,

it forms 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

amongst 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 Cuban-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 it gathered people 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 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.

Yes, 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 heard or read

because there were very few.

Nowadays, we are, 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 were 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 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 for using new technologies to tell others 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.