• ADVERTISEMENT

    Introduction to Rising Voices Outreach Initiative

    by David Sasaki
    October 15, 2007

    risingvoices.jpgRising Voices is a new citizen media outreach project of Global Voices, which aims to spread the benefits of citizen media to regions, languages, and communities that are currently underrepresented on the conversational web. It serves as the third arm of Global Voices’ triad of amplifying independent voices worldwide, advocating for their right to free speech, and providing universal access to citizen media tools as is described in our founding manifesto.

    For nearly three years now Global Voices has served as the web’s leading network of bridge-bloggers from around the world who serve as cultural ambassadors of their countries’ blogging communities. A team of editors covering nine regions and nine languages joins forces every day with a network of over a hundred volunteer authors to highlight the global blogosphere’s best content. Via comments, trackbacks, and online friendships, a distributed 24/7 global discussion has taken shape.

    cyber_cafe-14.jpgHowever, the participants tend to be overwhelmingly urban, middlle-class, and highly educated. While the multilingual, multicultural, and multi-thematic conversations across borders are exciting, they are not entirely representative of the world’s population. Rising Voices hopes to provide the resources and networking to help make the world wide web more representative of the world population. So far, the project (which began in June) has already met some promising successes. We’ve distributed microgrants of up to $5,000 to five different outreach projects based in Bolivia, Colombia, India, Bangladesh, and Sierra Leone.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    For the most recent updates from each of the five projects, head over to the Rising Voices weblog. Later this month we’ll announce our second round of microgrant funding, which will bring five more exciting projects on board. In future posts I’ll look at some of the successes and challenges encountered by each of the outreach projects. I’ll also document the progress of our citizen media outreach guide to make the process of web 2.0 participation less daunting for newcomers to the Internet from the developing world.

    Tagged: bangladesh bolivia colombia global voices india outreach rising voices sierra leone

    Comments are closed.

  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • Who We Are

    MediaShift is the premier destination for insight and analysis at the intersection of media and technology. The MediaShift network includes MediaShift, EducationShift, MetricShift and Idea Lab, as well as workshops and weekend hackathons, email newsletters, a weekly podcast and a series of DigitalEd online trainings.

    About MediaShift »
    Contact us »
    Sponsor MediaShift »
    MediaShift Newsletters »

    Follow us on Social Media

    @MediaShiftorg
    @Mediatwit
    @MediaShiftPod
    Facebook.com/MediaShift