2 comments on “HiperBarrio: Blogging The Hard Way”

  1. That’s so POSITIVE Kevin:

    Teenage gangs and Internet social media are two very popular tabloid targets. The mainstream media seem to like it even better when these bogeys intersect through bullying, violence or racism. It’s boyz in the ‘hood, off their facebooks, organising rumbles via tweets. A South American project is challenging these shallow depictions.

    A combination of youth, libraries and the blogosphere has shown that there can be alternative storylines. It’s an unlikely setting. The city of Medillin in Columbia has been better known for drugs, theft, intimidation, kidnapping and murder, with lashings of political and police corruption thrown in. A group of young people in the La Loma de Javier neighbourhood are confronting this bleak picture.

    Their blogging collective HiperBarrio aims ‘to promote community use of the Web by the responsible exercise of citizen journalism and the recovery of historical memory’.

    They are not only documenting their history and preserving their culture. They face the fear that permeates their communities by telling their stories. More importantly they are focused on building a better society where paramilitaries do not rule and violence does not draw “invisible borders” between local neighbourhoods.

    They are working for a participatory, free and open democracy. They are defending their culture and their future with ideas, with words. Their weapons include multi-media tools such as blogs, video, audio and podcasts. As a result, training is a crucial part of their mission. I was chuffed to see an article ‘On Grammar’ on their central blog ConVerGentes. It explores the need for precision and accuracy in online journalism.

    Their virtual pens generate both stark prose and impassioned poetry. Try fitting that into the usual stereotype.

    —
    Great stuff.

    N’

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