André Lemos is Associate Professor, Faculty of Communication, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. PhD in Sociology, Sorbonne (1995), Visiting Scholar University of Alberta and McGill University, Canada (2007-2008). Coordinator of Cybercity Research Group (UFBa/CNPq) and Researcher level 1 at CNPq. Member of Prix Ars Electronica, Wi. Journal of Mobile Media and Canadian Journal of Communication Board. This Carnet is online since March 1st, 2001.
Dois posts chamam a atenção para o uso de tecnologias móveis como ferramenta de luta pelos direitos humanos e de reforço comunitário. Como temos mostrado nesse Carnet, as tecnologias móveis, principalmente os celulares aliados a ferramentas da web 2.0, têm propiciado a criação de projetos que reforçam a dimensão local, os laços comunitários e ajudam a disseminar informações que são usadas como ferramentas de barganha política e de luta pelos direitos humanos.
O primeiro post vem do Rue89, pela pluma do jornalista Théophile Kouamouo, mostrando como as SMS são ferramentas de luta na África, através do projeto, Ushahidi, como mostramos em outro post desse Carnet.
Do Rue 89
Trechos:
"(...) La récente crise politique kenyane a profondément traumatisé la société civile de ce pays parmi les plus évolués d'Afrique. Plusieurs informaticiens et spécialistes d'Internet ont essayé de se rendre utiles dans ce contexte explosif. Parmi eux, deux hommes: Erik Hersman, très influent au sein de la blogosphère "techno" africaine, installé aux Etats-Unis après avoir grandi au Kenya et au Soudan, et David Kobia, serial entrepreneur du web. Ils ont eu une idée: combiner les avantages de la téléphonie mobile (dont l'usage s'est démocratisé en Afrique) et d'Internet; utiliser le mobile pour mieux recueillir à la base les témoignages concernant les exactions de part et d'autre, et le web pour mieux les dénoncer. C'est ainsi que le site Ushahidi est né.(...)"
O outro post vem do MediaShift Idea Lab, em texto de Paul Lamb, mostrando como as tecnologias móveis em colaboração podem reforçar os laços comunitários e questões locais. O autor mostra um projeto fictício, o LOCABEAT, mas que encontra eco em vários projetos do mesmo gênero ao redor do planeta. Vejam alguns posts do Carnet sobre esse tema.
Trechos:
"My name is Jose Gutierrez. I am 18 years old and live in East Oakland, off of International and 24th Streets. We don't have a computer in my house, and other than Spanish language TV and radio we get all of our information on our mobile phones on LOCOBEAT (fictional).
- On my cell phone I have my neighborhood mapped out. I know which blocks to avoid because of gangbangers & drug dealers (and I get color coded updates from people in my neighborhood when violence happens to help me decide which places to avoid and which safe routes for my little brother Ernesto to take walking to school)
- neighborhood job openings appear on my **mobile map** as they are announced, and I get a text message alert when I walk by a store or and business on the street that has an opening.
- I belong to locobeat's **social network** that let's me know if I know anybody that knows the person who is looking to hire, and keeps me and my friends connected. We get alerts when friends or friends of friends are nearby and have a color coded system for people we don't like or the cops come around.
- My friends and I **share and rate the music** of local rappers and Hip-Hop artists that we like, and we have created our own marketing business that lets everyone know when and where our favorites are playing. We also earn money from ringtone and song downloads, and can mix our own beats on the fly.
-My uncle Jaime is a day laborer, and he gets a text message in Spanish when a day job is available, that tells him where to go...so he doesn't need to stand out on the street all day.
-My mom uses locobeat to get alerts about fresh vegetables or other things she likes to buy arrive at our local supermarket.
(...)
There are lots of great mobile projects and tools (i.e., mobile banking) aimed at the poor in the developing world, so why not in the US too? What are your ideas for a mobile future in low income and underserved communities, and anyone interested in working on a real LOCOBEAT?"
Mais uma mapa com informações localizadas sobre cidades. Aqui vemos como o City 8, na China, usa panoramas do google street view, permitindo aos usuários adicionar informações localizadas (geotags) e comentários em relação os lugares do ambiente urbano. (via Digital Urban). Há GIS mas de mais de 30 cidades chinesas. Mais infos sobre o City8, aqui.
Mapas colaborativo ajuda a identificar violência no Kenya, a partir de testemuhos em primeiro grau. Mais um uso colaborativo e local de mapas. Informações podem ser enviadas por SMS (via Locative Media).
Ushahidi.com is a tool for people who witness acts of violence in Kenya in these post-election times. You can report the incident that you have seen, and it will appear on a map-based view for others to see. We are working with local Kenyan NGO's to get information and to verify each incident.
What you can do is get the word out about Ushahidi so that it's utilized to it's full potential. This especially extends to talking to the people that you know who have seen things in Kenya and getting them to the site as well. You can also help by using the contact form to volunteer to help with the tracking and verifying of each incident."
Mais uma site sobre mídias locativas, jornalismo e comunidade. O "EveryBlock", permite visaulização de notícias sobre uma determinada localidade e interação entre os usuários. Três cidades estão cobertas hoje: NY, Chicago e SF. A questão que se coloca é "What's happening in my neighborhood?". O usuário pode encontrar três tipos de notícia: "Civic Information", "News and blog entries" e "Fun". O interessante é que a definição do que é notícia deixa de ser balizada por critérios jornalísticos e torna-se muito mais impressionista...Vejam nesses trechos retirados do site (via Locative Media):
"For a long time, that's been a tough question to answer. In dense, bustling cities like Chicago, New York and San Francisco, the number of daily media reports, government proceedings and local Internet conversations is staggering. Every day, a wealth of local information is created ? officials inspect restaurants, journalists cover fires and Web users post photographs ? but who has time to sort through all of that?
Our mission at EveryBlock is to solve that problem. We aim to collect all of the news and civic goings-on that have happened recently in your city, and make it simple for you to keep track of news in particular areas. We?re a geographic filter ? a 'news feed' for your neighborhood, or, yes, even your block.
(...) Well, it can be ? and we include as much of that on EveryBlock as possible. But, in our minds, 'news' at the neighborhood or block level means a lot more. On EveryBlock, 'Somebody reviewed the new Italian restaurant down the street on Yelp' is news. 'Somebody took a photo of that cool house on your block and posted it to Flickr' is news. 'The NYPD posted its weekly crime report for your neighborhood' is news. If it's in your neighborhood and it happened recently, it's news on EveryBlock."
Formas comunitárias emergem com sistemas locativos. Post do Smart Mobs mostra como tecnologias móveis estão ampliando formas de mobilização, criando novas sinergias sociais e usos dos espaços urbanos. A questão colocada no post:
"If ingenious games designers can inspire thousands of people to collaborate to solve a puzzle, could we do something similar to tackle global warming, keep communities safe, provide support for the elderly, help disaster victims, lend and borrow money, conduct political and policy debates, teach and learn, design and make physical products?"
O texto aponta para perspectivas de uso "de baixo para cima" das tecnologias de comunicação móvel para mobilização política.
"(...) By the powerful storm of the new communication technologies, mobs that think and act collectively are taking over areas dominated before by scholars, organizations, institutions, and corporations. There?s an evolutionary process taking place as we speak, a process that is experimenting with replacing the hierarchical top-down organizations with peer-to-peer forms of mob organizing. Citizens have now a worldly opportunity to organize themselves without the trappings of traditional organizations. Nowadays we have mob politics, mob branding, mob science, mob learning and so on. Leadbetter offers wonderful examples of each mob. What I found to be interesting is the observation about processes that truly promote democracy: the broadband by which mobs communicate, get organized and act proves itself to be more efficient in bringing democratic change ?- consider the example of the political opposition in Vietnam, entirely founded and organized via Internet ?- than the billions of dollars spent by US on the war in Iraq.(...)"
No mesmo espírito, post do New Mobilities comenta artigo do NYT mostrando o crescimento de redes sociais móveis que utilizam blogs, micro-blogs e software sociais a partir de dispositivos móveis para manter vínculos sociais em mobilidade pelo espaço urbano. Também diversos projetos de mobilização política e de reforço comunitários podem ser vistos no site do MobileActive.org, como os recentes sobre vídeos sobre direito das mulheres: "about women's rights is one of three mobile phone videos made by Egyptian artist Ahmad Sherif, designed to be spread virally on mobile phones.(...)", ou sobre guias para ONGs utilizarem SMS para pressionar representantes: "(...) text-to-screen campaign allows for exactly this: A large screen, placed right outside the State House, for example, that brings your constituents? text messages to legislators' eyes."
O uso de tecnologias móveis como telefones celulares devem ser prioritários já que há mais usuários de celular do que de internet e recente pesquisa confirma essa tendência. Post do Geek mostra como os celulares são "mais necessários que internet": " Uma nova pesquisa do Pew Internet & American Life Project mostrou que os telefones celulares ultrapassaram a internet e a televisão na lista de prioridades entre o público americano.(...) A pesquisa também descobriu que 62% de todos os americanos já utilizaram um celular para aplicações não tradicionais (enviar e receber chamadas), ou acessaram a internet a partir de uma conexão sem fio. Entre os usos mais populares para celulares e PDAs estão envio e recebimento de SMS (31%), fotografia (15%), jogos (8%), acesso a informações (7%), reprodução de música (6%), mensagem instantânea (6%), gravação de vídeos (3%), visualização de mapas (3%) e reprodução de vídeo (3%). O estudo completo traz divisões étnicas e etárias e pode ser lido, em inglês, neste PDF.
Por último, post do MediaShift de Paul Lamb mostra sitema mashup, Netsquared em São Francisco projetado para encorajar a participação civil e de organizações sem fins de lucro: " For example, a submission called Community News & Caring Map is aimed at allowing writers to know where their readers are geographically located. The idea being that if you know more about who your audience is, the better you can speak to them and provide more informed journalism. (...) Another listed contender is called NewsFlash: Mapping top stories in 200 plus countries. This one is already live, and allows you to pick top stories from around the globe from a colorful world map. The idea here is to encourage people to expand their news horizons through a graphically rich interface. (...) My favorite idea submitted so far on the news front is called Ushahidi: Mapping Reports of post election violence in Kenya. This mashup intends to help document issues of violence and death not reported by the government, police or the mainstream press. The effort seeks to provide a graphical timeline of events, document specific cases, and ultimately provide pictures and information about unreported or underreported victims. This strikes me as a very practical and important tool, not to mention representing "citizen journalism" at its best."
Como coloquei na minha fala no Medialab Prado sobre comunidade:
"The city is seen as a place that insulates people, where prevailing the lack of contact and privacy. The community is a social pre-urban form, with emphasis in place as "home". Could locative media locative recreate community feelings of belonging? What are the goals of bottom-up projects if not, effectively, creating more effective ways of communication and new forms of fighting against anomie and separation? We can see collective and collaborative processes with virtual communities on the Internet (virtual communities like forums, chat rooms, newsgroups) and today with locative media projects (mobile social networks, collaborative maps, urban annotations, bottom-up mobilizations, location-based games, smart and flash mobs). We can see these experiences as ways to combat the emptiness of urban space, to rethink the social bond. For young people, community are friends and family members that they can stay in touch by face-to-face encounters but also, by information exchange in blogs, micro-blogs, social software, SMS text, cellphone photos and videos. Community only makes sense today in terms of mobility, fluidity. Theses online relations don't kill face-to-face relations AND the urban spaces. They create new forms and NEW temporalities of communities and places. Discussions on Facebook, updates in micro-blogs, synchronization of activities by SMS, perpetual contact with cellphones is all new activities that reinforce social relationship, the community belonging and the use of urban spaces. We must avoid a nostalgic vision of communities, of places and cities, on the risk of no longer see the urban realm that is growing in front of us."
Projeto Fearless City, em Vancouver, usa tecnologias móveis para ajudar comunidades marginalizadas em BC. Segundo os idealizadores, aprender a usar as tecnologias móveis (para produção de conteúdo em textos, vídeos e fotos) pode ajudar a tirar essas comunidades da marginalidade e criar formas legítimas de expressão. (via m-trends.org). O porjeto foi apresentado como um workshop na Lift Conference 2008 em Genebra). No site do evento podemos ver uma sinopse do workshop:
"The workshop will feature an introduction to Fearless City, followed by small group discussions exploring how open mobile communities are advancing storytelling, cultural expression, social inclusion, and human rights. What tactics, projects, software and gear are combating the digital barrier, such as establishing open source mesh networks, mobile rich media file sharing, live mobile video editing, live screens, redistribution systems for mobile devices, and commissioning mobile art? Help co-design this mobile communication system by contributing your unique solutions of both hardware and software breakthroughs and designs. Learn about mobile file sharing systems (video, photo, text, voice) transforming human relations for marginalized peoples. (...)"
Post do MediaShift Idea Lab sobre a relação entre o local e a comunidade em relação a sistemas de geotags pode ajudar a pensar a importancia das mídias locativas.
Podemos dizer que a cidade é lugar primeiro de experiência da modernidade. A dinâmica das cidades modernas impulsiona o individuo para o contato quotidiano (ruas, trasnportes publicos, shoppings, indústrias) e, ao mesmo tempo, cria o sentimento de solidão e isolamento. A indiferenca e as obrigações do dia a dia traz enclausuramento mesmo em publico. Aqui aparecem as caracteristicas da modernidade: racionalidade instrumental, anomia, individualismo. No entanto, formas comunitárias, associativas, ttibais emergem (mas não vou desenvolver isso agora).
Pensar a mobilidade hoje e as práticas com as mídias locativas nos obrigam a rever as relações sociais e as práticas comunicacionais. Como as mídias locativas poderiam recriar sentimentos comunitarios? O objetivo primeiro e o interesse maior de projetos bottom-up não são, efetivamente, a possibilidade de criar formas de comunicação mais efetivas entre as pessoas e também formas de apropriacao, lutando contra anomia e a separação, do espaço urbano?
Nesse sentido o post de Dan Schultz do Media Shift é interessante justamente por questionar a relação entre as "geotags" (informações indexadas a lugares) e a comunidade aí presente.
Trechos:
"The funny thing is that we had actually misinterpreted the entire situation - we took 'specific physical area' to mean 'specific physical community' (...). This post is about my suspicion that although Geotagging does connect information to a physical location, a lot of the time we are actually trying to connect information to the communities that exist there. My point is simply this: articles that are tagged to a spot on the map are tagged to a spot - not a community. Since physically defined communities 'contain' those spots it is easy to accidentally ignore the middleman and treat Geotagging as a way to connect information to community. This wouldn't be a problem, but 'physical location' and 'physically defined community' can be functionally different concepts.
(...) One possible solution is pretty straightforward: in addition to tagging to the physical location, tag the story directly to the relevant physical community. Doing this would get the best of both worlds. I could see this working is with a library of physical communities where each community has some data associated with it. (...) Even if this example solution isn't the best, the disparity between "physical location" and 'physical community' is one that ought to be addressed when working with Geotagged news."
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