“We also want our rights to be respected.”

The Reframed Stories Project asks people to respond to dominant themes and issues that appear in news coverage about their communities. These stories are reflections by people who are frequently represented by others in the media. Word clouds are created using the Media Cloud platform, a data analysis tool which examines a collection of media outlets over a specific period of time, allowing participants to analyze and discuss the preliminary insights into how they might be represented in the media. The project refrains from making conclusive pronouncements about the data, and instead is a starting point that creates space for discussion about how they can help shape their own media representation through digital media.

Fernanda Gualinga is a member of the Kichwa Peoples of Sarayaku located in Amazonian Region of Ecuador, and which has held long fights at a national and international level to stop extraction projects in their territory. The following is a transcript of the video of Fernanda's analysis of the word cloud for the term “Selva Viviente,” (Living Forest) which is a way of life to live together with nature. Within the word cloud, the word “derechos” (rights) attracted Fernanda's attention.

Dominant words from 11 articles published between January 2017 and April 2018 mentioning “Selva Viviente” (Living Forest) within 3 Media Cloud collections of Ecuador’s Spanish-language media outlets. (view larger image)

He escogido la palabra ‘derecho’. ¿Por qué? Porque nuestros derechos, los de las mujeres han sido violentado por por las grandes empresas transnacionales. Me refiero a las empresas petroleras, mineras y madereras.

Lo que yo quiero que aparezca en estas nubes de palabras son ‘joven,’ ‘mujer,’ y ‘indígena’. También que nos respeten nuestros derechos.

I chose the word ‘Rights’. Why? Because our rights, especially those of women have been violated by the big transnational corporations. I am referring to oil companies, mining companies, and lumber companies.

What I want to appear in these word clouds are ‘youth,’ ‘woman,’ and ‘indigenous’. We also want our rights to be respected.

This is part of a Rising Frames series developed as part of a workshop organized by the Communications Department of Sarayaku on May 17, 2018 that brought together youth members of the community to examine how they or issues they care about are represented in an Ecuadorian media collection. Following the discussion, they created stories in response to that representation. One of the workshop facilitators, José Santí participated earlier in the Reframed Stories Project and wrote his own story about the representation of Sarayaku.

Mónica Bonilla assisted with the transcription and translation, which was edited for clarity and length.

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