In the democracies we all know about the student demonstrations in
Venezuela that started when the Chavez government closed down a popular
cable channel because it did not air all of Chavez's speeches or play
enough patriotic music.
And then how those demonstrations moved on to complaints about
corruption and inadequate services.
But in heavily censored Cuba, that information is not proper to be
released to the people.
The only problem is that thanks to satellite connections, mobile phones
and tech savvy young people, that news is getting out.
Take, for example, a posting from Generation Y in Cuba:
Outlawed Information
Rumors spread, murmurs become official notes and newspapers report
– several weeks later – what the whole country already knows. We have
gone from rationed information to a veritable "coming out" that flows in
parallel with the censorship of the official media. Our glasnost has not
been driven from offices and ministries, but has emerged in mobile
phones, digital cameras and removable memories. The same black market
that supplied powdered milk or detergent now offers illegal Internet
connections and television programs that arrive through prohibited
satellite dishes.
This is how we learned of the events in Venezuela during the last
week. My own cell phone has been on the verge of collapse from so many
messages telling me about the student protests and the closure of
several television stations. I forward copies of these brief headlines
to everyone in my address book, in a network that mimics viral
transmission: I spread it to many and they in turn inoculate a hundred
more with the information. There is no way to stop this form of
broadcast news, because it does not use a fixed structure but mutates
and adapts to each circumstance. It is anti-hegemonic, although the
little word acquires different connotations in the Cuban case, where the
hegemony has belonged to the newspaper Granma, the TV show The Round
Table, and the DOR*.
http://www.desdecuba.com/generationy/?p=1447
Generation Y is an interesting blog right out of Cuba with the following
tag: "Generation Y is a Blog inspired by people like me, with names that
start with or contain a "Y". Born in Cuba in the '70s and '80s, marked
by schools in the countryside, Russian cartoons, illegal emigration and
frustration."
It is well worth regular visits.
Journalism and the World » Blog Archive » Getting "outlawed news" in
Cuba (3 February 2010)
http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/ijc/?p=894
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