Globally, local journalists and storytellers are taking the initiative to be the creators and curators of their continent's stories. They are successfully claiming the ownership of the messaging, bringing a local and original viewpoint on issues, and influencing how media shape the dominant cultural, social and political picture. Their mission is to spark and propagate positive change and lead in the creation of a more equitable and just society, by spotlighting the opinions and efforts of local people, young and old, on a variety of vital issues. In many areas these initiatives have been successful (e.g. the African ViceVersa project).
Localized Information for Tourists
There is however one bastion of resistance that is still dominated by sources that are not locally based: tourist information.
Although domestic local, national and regional tourism is gaining ground vis-à-vis international tourism (with the growth of middle classes and travelling opportunities everywhere), many tourism writers and influencers still originate mainly from the Western tourism sending countries. In cases where tourist information is provided by local stakeholders, this invariably is limited to representatives of the tourism industry, who have an interest in providing only their side of the story, and are often biassed towards an international target audience.
The Tourism Voices project aims to assist local journalists, travel writers and storytellers in collecting and telling the stories of their own communities. It bases itself on one of the earlier attempts to break the dominance of western media in tourism information, the Vakantiespiegel 2000, initiated by the Retour Foundation, 25 years ago. This was one of the first fully web-based information systems for travellers, using the opportunities of the internet (then still in its infancy) to create a direct link between local stakeholders and travellers, offering information on tourism, provided directly by local stakeholders. More information can be found in this link to the Tourism Voices Originals