Argentina: We Media 2008 in Buenos Aires · Global Voices
Juan Arellano

The We Media conference was held for the first time in Latin America, when the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina played host on October 14-15, 2008.  The media thinktank iFOCOS has been organizing annual conferences in Miami, and together with the newspaper Clarín, the conference was brought to Argentina. Media executives, web entrepreneurs,and bloggers, among others gathered at the Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA for its initials in Spanish) to hear a wide range of speakers on topics such as “Media and Blogs”, “Internet, Marketing and Society” and “Communication, New Generations and Online Communities.”
With the quantity of bloggers who were present in the auditorium as presenters and attendees, there was a wide and diverse coverage of the event.  The Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín published an article on their website called “Talking About We Media Buenos Aires [es],” which provided a good collection of blog and media links about the event. A blog post written by Martín of Botón de Inicio [es], who wrote “We Media from the Argentine twittosphere [es],” where he published many, and what he considers the best tweets from We Media.
Young people in the media was also a frequently mentioned topic, including the local photo-blogger (floggger) nicknamed La Cumbio [es], who was often referred to during the two-day event, as an example of attitude, ability and success.  The conference organizers invited her to the event, along with three other young bloggers to share information on how they use the internet and other social software.  José of E-true [es] in his post: Bonus We Media: Adolescents [es]wrote about the conclusions from the discussion:
-Son gente común con distintas características y que se identifican en un mundo virtual y en un mundo real a la vez. No es nada del otro mundo. Todos lo hacemos al ingresar en Internet.
-Los medios no los comprenden. Escriben cualquier cosa de sus formas de vivir. Y encima los categorizan mal. ¿Falta de interés o de información?
-No son fenónemos, no son “nosotros”, “ellos” o “personas comunes”, somos todos iguales, con distintas características.
En un evento en donde la mayoría pertencía a prestigiosas empresas de medios, agencias de publicidad, son bloggers o están interesados en el tiempo, los adolescentes demostraron que no son un fenómeno al cual tenerle miedo. Para nada.
-They are ordinary people with distinct characteristics and who identify with the virtual and real world at the same time.  It is nothing from another planet.  We all do this when we go online.
-The media doesn't understand them.  They write whatever whey want about their lifestyle.  On top of it, they categorize them incorrectly.  A lack of interest or a lack of information?
-They are not phenonmena, they are not “we’, “they,” or “ordinary people,” we are all the same, with different characterisitcs.
In an event, where the majority of people belonged to prestigious media companies, publicity agencies, bloggers or are interested in the topic, the teenagers demonstrated that they are not a phenomenon to be feared.  Not at all.
However, not all agree. Federico of Dotpod [es] writes:
es importante poner especial énfasis en algo concreto, ya que si bien el periodismo y los blogs son de alguna manera moneda corriente, algunos de los disertantes han llegado a menospreciar a la blogósfera y eso puede no ser tomado con buenos ojos. Tenembaum por ejemplo empezó hablando de los blogs y después los mezcó con la famosa flogger “Cumbio“, algo que a mí sinceramente me pareció degradante, amén de que ya parece un cliché hablar de esta mina xD.
It is important to put special emphasis on something concrete, as journalism and blog are something common, some of the speakers undervalued the blogosphere and that cannot be seen well.  Tenembaum, for example, started to talk about the blogs and then later mixed them with the famous flogger “Cumbio,” which to me, honestly, seemed a little degrading, and it appears to be cliché to talk about this girl xD.
Andrés from Unblogged [es] writes about the participation of Global Voices’ author from Argentina, Jorge Gobbi:
“Comunidades conectadas y multitudes organizadas” con Jorge Gobbi de Global Voices, Juan Cruz Mones Cazón de Idealistas.org y Paulien Osse de Wage Indicator Foundation. Cada uno de ellos estuvo contando sobre el proyecto en el que participan y sin duda Global Voices fue el que se llevó los premios, ya que la ronda de preguntas estuvo principalmente dedicada a Gobbi. Global Voices básicamente es una red de colaboradores de todo el mundo que toma información de blogs en cada país y la misma es publicada en distintos idiomas, también traducida por un grupo de traductores colaboradores de los distintos idiomas. En Argentina, Jorge es el único colaborador en la parte de escritura.
“Connected communities and organized crowds,” with Jorge Gobbi of Global Voices, Juan Cruz Mones Cazón of Idealistas.org and Paulien Osse of Wage Indicator Foundation.  Each one spoke about the projects in which they participate, and without a doubt, Global Voices took home the prizes, as the round of questions were primarily directed to Gobbi.  Global Voices is basically a network of collaborators around the world that takes information from blogs of each country that is published in different languages, and it is also translated by a group of collaborators from various languages.  In Argentina, Jorge is the only volunteer that writes articles.
For those interested, please see the article from Clarín, read comments on blogs, and see the photos from the event at the Flickr pool.