Transcript for Interview with Diego Casaes

I'm Diego Casaes. I'm from Brazil.

I live in Salvador in the northeastern part of Brazil.

I am the coordinator

of the Portuguese translation team and a voluntary author

for Global Voices Online.

David: And how did you get started in Global Voices?

Diego: I got started in Global Voices when I met Paula on Twitter.

She invited me to write. It was about

the flooding in Brazil.

And it was in May, 2009, this year.

So it has been seven months.

David: What are some of the other topics that you write about on Global Voices?

I mostly write about freedom of speech and cyberactivism.

A couple of times it was about the environment.

Mostly about cyberactivism.

David: How do you see the Brazilian blogosphere as different from other blogospheres around the world?

Diego: Well, maybe because we are very passionate when we discuss things

so bloggers take this passion

from daily life to their blogs. So they are very optimistic

and discuss really loudly with each other.

They scream on Twitter.

In many blogs you can see many comments ...

like flaming comments. People with passion.

Actually, it's interesting

to see how the Brazilian blogosphere is quite different from others.

David: And why do you think that is? You think it's just ... cultural?

Diego: Maybe. Because I was talking to a friend

from Kazakhstan and he says that the blogosphere in Kazakhstan is not very active.

They have lots of blog posts, but not lots of comments.

In Brazil it is very different. We see lots of comments in the blog posts.

People really discuss things.

David: So what are some of the things that Brazilian bloggers are discussing these days?

Diego: These days, especially in 2009,

they are very addicted to discussing about cyber-activism.

Because we have lots of bills

that want to take away our freedom on the internet.

So, in this event where we are here now,

lots of blogs from cyber-activism

and freedom of speech are discussing all of this.

David: What do you write about on your personal blogs?

Diego: Well, some of my points of view on many subjects of communication,

freedom of speech. But I also have a

blog about Japanese culture because

I listen to Japanese music

and I watch many Japanese animations.

So I mostly write about that.

It's nice actually because nobody

thinks you would write about that.

I'm not very Japanese. I don't look Japanese, but

I just love it.

David: You're going to Copenhagen, right? For a conference on climate change.

How did that all come about?

Diego: Well, actually I got a message from

my Global Voices reader profile

asking me to go to Copenhagen to participate in the Think About It competition.

A European blogging competition.

I went to Copenhagen in December and we

were at the launch event where we learned about

what we were going to blog about on climate change.

Now, last week,

we got the news - me and two other guys -

that we were selected to represent

the European Journalism Centre in the COP15.

From 92 bloggers only three of us.

David: Solana from Global Voices asks, "what are you going to do in Copenhagen with your blogging award?"

Diego: Well, I hope to

bring bloggers' and journalists' views on the COP15.

And maybe meet some world leaders

and try to ask them if they

really want to see the planet die.

And try to bring citizen media into the discussion

because there are plenty of journalists

who are going to COP15 but

I think this is the only actual event

where many bloggers are going to a big even like this.

So, it's quite different. And I hope to

do a good job reporting on climate change.

David: Sylwia Presley asks, "How has working for Global Voices changed your life?"

Diego: Since I am Brazilian I am very passionate

about many things and I think that Global Voices

is part of us because we learn from it

and we bring some of these themes that we're discussing on Global Voices

to our daily life and discuss them with friends.

Sometimes I bring topics like wars in distances places like Africa

or people dying of hunger in Kazakhstan.

I think this kind of blog

Global Voices made me more aware that we are in a world

and that there are other people in this life;

not only our close friends.

David: This question comes from Ethan: "Where can I learn more about Technobrega music?"

Diego: I saw his question on Twitter

and I was quite scared because I don't listen to technobrega.

But I did some research

and there is this website called bregapop.com and they gather many style of brega music

including technobrega and it is interesting because

in the bands' profiles they had the Orkut profile

telephone numbers. So if you want to contact them you can just go to this community

and find many artists from Belém do Pará, which is the place where the technobrega emerged from.

They also embedded many YouTube videos of technobrega in this community

so it's quite fun actually.

It is interesting how they use citizen media

and other web 2.0 resources on this website.

David: What would you like to see for the future of Global Voices in the next five years?

Diego: For the future of Global Voices I think

we are going to create much more content

on the Lingua sites

and I think that we'll establish a very well-known community. We'll get famous I think.

Many more people will want to contribute to Global Voices

At this event where we are right now, many people came to me asking, "how can we contribute to Global Voices?"

So I think that the community will grow.

You can read Diego's articles on Global Voices at: