El Poder De Elegir is a cross-border online project which is led by women and uses, design and anthropology as discursive tools to building civil society capacity to mitigate and counter Dis-mis and mal information.

April 2017 – January 2020 / Co- Founder – Project manager- Creative director – Communication strategist – Grant manager –  Investors and partners manager

Elections period is a moment of campaigns, propaganda and many communication strategies that include manipulation and disinformation. This has happened for many year,  but nowadays it faces new challenges due to the characteristics of internet and the digital platforms. The social context of political polarization and disinformation to persuade the voter through social networks is not new, but the substantial difference in recent years was the exposure of the power of WhatsApp not only to persuade people, but to extend that persuasion quickly between large groups.

 

This project will be will be carried out in a context of disinformation and political elections in Colombia.  According to the Colombian Ministry of Technology and Telecommunications, 60% of Colombians regularly use WhatsApp. The viral messages that circulated on WhatsApp before and during the plebiscite demonstrated how fear and manipulation strategies, which sought to misinform, spread doubts and increase the generalized uncertainty in an already polarized country, were decisive in the decision making of voters.

 

The fast dissemination of manipulated information  in WhatsApp, lead us to create a project that seeks to contribute to a better informed society, through journalistic and collaborative work.

 

Online Social listening: We analyze the human behavior of focus groups in social networks and the ecology of information and fun entertainment in Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico. Seeking to understand the spectrum of communication, languages, discourses and formats to create focused messages and designs for each country.

 

The method: We Created a loop methodology to monitor  and fact-check the political information that circulates through WhatsApp during the campaign period of the presidential elections of 2018.  

 

Process we did capability building to journalist, designers and communicators womans from the cities and the rural areas of Colombia, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela .

 

The brand: Through graphic design we wanted to get out of color stereotypes and address the issue of the representation of the diversity whit special focus in LGTB + community. We use gifs and memes as an engagement tool.  

Lia Valero:

 Co- Founder-Latin America Editor – Grant Manager – Partners Manager – Communication strategist – Fact Checker. 

Eliana Vaca 

Co-Founder- Latin America Project manager – Creative director.  

Claudia Báez: 

Co-Founder

Diana Carolina Gómez Aguilar: Journalist Fact checker Colombia.

Daian Alexa Muñoz: Latino America graphic designer –  Fact checker Colombia.

Adalis Medina Lozano: Journalist Fact checker Colombia.

Juan camilo Maldonado:

Editor Colombia.

Daniela Hernández: 

Illustrator Colombia.

Victoria Romero: 

Motion graphics animator Colombia.

 

mexico

Tania del Rosario Chacón:

Journalist Fact checker.

Jocelyn Lizbeth Molinar: Designer

Mayra Elizabeth Vargas

Journalist Fact checker.

Brasil and Venezuela Team names, can’t be public.