Argentina: Mi* Platform for Budding Spanish Speaking Citizen Journalists

From Argentina, the Mi * (asterisk) citizen journalism website has sprouted up, with the intention of becoming the platform for budding Spanish speaking citizen journalists to post their work and receive comments, discuss topics, receive training and share content. So far citizen journalism workshops have been given in Argentina, Ecuador and Dominican Republic, and citizens from these and other countries have been participating on the site.The previous video shows the opinions of the people who were part of the workshop in Ecuador, and how it will change the way they work. They point out that Mi* provides an excellent platform for them to post relevant content that gets swept to the sidelines on more popular social networking sites.

You can sign up for the virtual or in person workshops on the sidebar of their site. According to Jacinto Lajas on the blog Citizen Journalism [es]:

Para ello organizan Talleres de Periodismo Ciudadano, ya celebrados en diferentes países, abiertos a todo público y destinados a generar espacios de participación directa de la ciudadanía en los medios de comunicación. Se trata de dotar a los jóvenes de las herramientas disponibles en la comunidad de Mi Asterisco para que puedan dar a conocer sus ideas, plantear problemas y compartir contenidos.

For this they organize Citizen Journalism Workshops, which have already taken place in different countries, open to all public and destined to generate spaces of direct participation for citizens in the media. It is about giving youth the tools available in the My Asterisk community so they can make their ideas known, present issues and share content.

In the following video, participants in the Ecuador workshop are asked what they think the future of newspapers is: they mentioned that going online was a definite step, that online content has made local newspapers reach international audiences and thus has a wider client base. Also that newspapers should try to compete by being more transparent about their biases and making sure information is accurately displayed.On the Mi* site you can create a profile, upload images, videos, write posts, post events, join groups, open discussions. Some of the most popular groups are the one of “Future Journalists“, “History of the Coup d'etat“, “Colombia, Beloved Homeland” and “No to Police Force's Abuses“.

One of the videos posted on the site by a participant is this one added by Andrea Hernández on an ongoing series on the economy of people who sell stuff informally on the street. On this documentary video, created by cdimarcoa, we see the daily routine of people who make a living selling packaged food and cell phone minutes in the city of Bogotá: