Spanish-Speakers ‘Catch Citizen Journalism Bug’

Innovative citizen journalism projects are growing across Spain and Spanish-speaking nations, according to an influential blog.

PBS MediaShift has produced an interesting landscape report detailing the latest efforts in Spain, South and Latin America to involve users in the production of content.

The blog post looks at user-generated content initiatives from leading newspapers such as Spain’s El Pais, whose Yo, Periodista section enables users to submit news and feature articles as well as photos and videos.

In addition, the blog provides snapshot reports on the latest newspaper-led and independent citizen journalism projects across several South American countries.

The two converge with Peru’s “citizen-generated newspaper” Gua 3.0, which has done some investigating into the inadequacy of government aid supplies to flood victims and also offers hyperlocal news and events updates.

However, the blog notes that the rising trend of Spanish language citizen journalism websites has not yet extended to the US, which has a significant Spanish-speaking population.

“Perhaps the citizen journalism bug will spread northward and US Latinos might find that, if the stories important to them aren’t covered, they can cover it themselves.”

Have a look at MediaShift for more examples of citizen journalism projects in Spain, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and other nations.