São Paulo – The media content produced by immigrants in the state of São Paulo since the 1990s until now will be available to the public through a digital platform that the Immigration Museum of São Paulo state developed in partnership with the School of Higher Education in Advertising and Marketing (ESPM). The initiative enhances and updates the material that the museum already had, with content produced since the 1980s.
The existing collection is mainly made up of newspapers produced by the communities. The new platform includes content such as blogs, websites, social media, videos, web radio or even banners, folders and print works done for specific occasions, according to Denise Cogo, coordinator of the research group Interculturality, Citizenship, Communication and Consumption (PPGCOM, in the Portuguese acronym). This is the group that heads the initiative at ESPM.
The coordinator says that the media content gathered includes individual and collective accounts of the journeys of these immigrants. The content also covers citizenship demands such as public services, cultural issues, religion, racism and prejudice and other topics of interest to the communities.
The platform was launched last weekend, December 18, with 119 registered initiatives and input will keep being added. In addition to work done by immigrants, projects of intermediary organizations that work with these foreigners are also being included.
Cogo says that the platform includes a lot of media content created by Bolivians. “They produce a lot of media content,” she says. There are also projects by Congolese, Uruguayan and Japanese immigrants. According to the coordinator, there are few Arabs. Among them is Salam Alsayyed, from Syria, who lives in São Paulo and plays the lute.
It was Cogo’s idea to update the platform with more contemporary immigration, since the group she coordinates at ESPM researches the topic. The Immigration Museum of São Paulo State approved the project, and the job started around three years ago. The process ranges from the design of the platform to the search of media content among the immigrants.
The project should help increase visibility for media content produced by these groups, to be a source for academic research, or as a basis for the immigrants themselves to analyze is being done in the field. “The idea is to be useful for whoever is interested in the subject,” says the coordinator of the PPGCOM.
Quick info:
Media Content by Immigrants in São Paulo
Visit: http://midiasdemigrantesdesp.com.br/
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
