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You can imagine how enthused we were when Padre Anchieta Foundation (FundacaoPadre Anchieta), Brazil’s highly respected public radio and television company, engaged Evoca to enable Brazilian “citizen reporters” to contribute original content online using their mobile phones. For the initial program, we supported the Foundation’s collaborative journalism initiative at RadarCultura, empowering thousands of Brazilian citizens to contribute online audio reports using their mobile phones at more than 800 venues within the San Paulo mega-city during Virada Cultural 2008, attended by over 3 million participants. The reporting by the station’s six professional journalists covering this massive 48-hour event was expanded by the thousands of citizen reporters using their mobile phones as Internet mics, enabled by the highly scalable Evoca Media Services software platform and integrated VoIP telephone services. On Brazil’s first collaborative radio station, RadarCultura listeners interact with one another and Cultura’s content team to produce the station’s broadcast programs.
Paulo Markun, president of the Padre Anchieta Foundation and noted Brazilian journalist, described the collaboration best: “Media convergence, as well as collaborative journalism, is a market trend, and the Padre Anchieta Foundation is keen to incorporate it into its operations to stimulate Cultural Responsibility and reach an increasing number of Brazilians. The New Media environment is emerging and we intend to be protagonists in this process. Broadcasting the Virada Cultural Event’ was an opportunity to reinforce the mission of this institution, which is ‘to contribute to social development as a public media company. By engaging with Evoca we can provide the opportunity for citizens to take part in mainstream communication, demonstrating the objective of public communication on TV, radio and the Internet”.
More about the Padre Anchieta Foundation: The Foundation was established by the state government of Sao Paulo in 1967 to deliver television and radio broadcasting as a private entity that enjoys autonomy of intellectual, political, and administrative activities. It is governed by a Council of 47 members from the professional, business, cultural, government, and nonprofit sectors. The main objective of the Foundation is to provide information of public interest and promote the cultural and educational advancement of its viewers and listeners.
We’ll keep our readers updated as we support Padre Anchieta Foundation’s objective to make broadcasting a two-way enterprise. Our missions are closely aligned: the Foundation’s mission as a public media company is to stimulate social development and we articulate the Evoca mission as: “The democratic impulse of the Internet, the ubiquity of the cell phone, and the power of oral expression have convinced us of one thing: it’s time to mobilize the voices.’” Stay tuned for our reports about the Foundation’s digital media initiatives with Evoca during the upcoming electoral campaign season in Brazil.
More about Evoca Media Services: EMS is a robust, scalable media platform delivered as Software-as-a-Service, through a RESTful HTTP API (application programming interface) with integrated VoIP telephone services, customizable Flash recorders and players, and user-friendly media management and phone application configuration features.
