“La Cuba que viene…” (The Cuba that comes…) is a transmedia and interactive product with resources, debates, articles and stories, created to increase public awareness and understanding of the constitutional reform that took place in Cuba between July 2018 and February 2019.
The constitutional reform was the most important political process of recent years for Cuba and there was an excess of information presented in a traditional dense analysis that hindered the participation of broader audiences (not experts). As the Cuban political power has control of the most influential media, it imposed a totally biased coverage. Following our mission as an independent digital media headquartered in Havana, we tried to reach the audience with impartial arguments and an original approach, that could helped them to analyze an issue on which there was widespread misinformation.
Built from a specific database, this product was divided into “Phases” and “Components”, following the chronological evolution of the national debate. It includes 11 different interactive resources (textual comparisons, search engines, interactive maps, word clouds, play cards…) together with related articles, infographics and videos, and comment sections, to activate conversations after each “phase.” The total coverage also includes 23 texts by 11 authors, 6 short videos for social media and two videos summaries of public presentations.
This was a joint and unprecedented effort in Cuba between journalists, researchers, jurists, political analysts, software developers and visual designers. We try to present theoretical contents in attractive, even playful, manners under a formal unit that could help to keep track of the whole reform. Transmedia condition comes from the crossing from digital to physical spaces. As part of the coverage, we held two public debates between were experts and citizens, created as safe places for political exchanges in our very polarized environment. Those events were filmed and later distributed using social media and offline distribution practices in Cuba, sharing from pen drives to pen drives.
The entire digital material is also available in an offline version (to be used in desktop computers) and in the mobile application of eltoque.com as other ways to reach thousands of users without Internet in Cuba.
