It has been a year of controversial and closely-contested elections throughout Latin America. As electoral observers take a restful sigh following the delayed conclusion of Felipe Calderón's controversial victory in Mexico [1], it is already time to look ahead to Brazil, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Ecuador; all set to head to the polls in the coming months. Media professor, Christian Espinosa (ES) [2] describes a decentralized effort by Ecuadorean citizen journalists (ES) [3] to supplement the mainstream media's coverage of the upcoming presidential election [4].
[5]A grassroots initiative (ES) [6] from the blogosphere to cover the elections has begun to take form. The website at the domain Ecuador Elige (ES) [5] (“Ecuador Chooses”) incorporates authors of diverse weblogs from different regions of the country to become citizen reporters documenting the campaigns of presidential candidates, outside the classic discourse of the media.
A video report from the border with Colombia [7] is already up thanks to a report by a local channel that was uploaded by one of the bloggers to share it on YouTube, which would have been otherwise impossible to see in other cities.
The organization (ES) [6] [of the project] was exclusively done online as per normal by the community of Ecuadorean bloggers (ES) [8]. Without meeting face to face, they managed to agree from Manabí, Quito, Guayaquil (ES) [9], Carchi (ES) [10], Riobamba, among other participant cities, how to begin the site.
Without a doubt it will help to know the similar experiences of other countries to better manage this opportunity…