The blog, "The Latin Americanist" provides a forum for all things Latin American, covering business, politics, and culture. It has several contributors and so there's much information and updates on current events from Latin America. I chose ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com because they seem to post a blog daily and their vision aligns with my initial purpose for my blog. Though I'm still not completely sure of the direction I would like for my blog, I'm glad that their blog has garnered much success through its professional and informative means.
The post titled, "Today's Videos: Mad Science" explains the 1940s incident in Guatemala where researchers from the United States government experimented on thousands of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases and lists the current findings regarding these exploitations. I enjoyed the structure of this post because it was brief, factual, to the point and it provides a humanitarian outlet. Though this blog may seem like any other news outlet, I argue that its presentation makes it different. It's everything but mainstream, yet it's no less effective. There are no advertisements, yet I believe its 1,165,482 page view is a testament to the blogs success. It has coverage on several current events from different Latin Americans countries, and other countries from different continents as well, on a day to day basis and it provides brief descriptions for each.
At the end of the post, they provide a video of an interview with Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby, the academic who ironically discovered the documents on the Guatemalan experiments while researching other occurrences. Throughout the whole post there are links which direct the reader to the original source of where the authors retrieved the data and information. This form of linking other websites and providing a video adds to the credibility of the blog and it makes it seem more interactive.
The following post from Tuesday August 30, 2011 titled, "World Watch: Deadline" ventures outside the stated goal or mission statement of the blog and provides coverage on different countries such as Libya, Asia, South Africa and India. Brief descriptions such as "Libya: Rebels gave besieged leader Muammar Gaddafi a deadline of the Saturday to "peacefully surrender." or "Asia: The Food and Agriculture Organization warned of a possible resurgence of the H5N1 avian flu virus in several Asian nations," make it easy for a reader to become informed of several current topics while having the choice to follow a link to learn more.
Like I mentioned earlier, the way I pictured my blog initially was as a forum where I could share news from different countries. This blog has me reconsidering this initial purpose. I would like to provide coverage in a concise manner similar to this blog, but for my blog, I would like to focus on one area of discussion since I will be alone in creating this blog. This leads me to my final concern. What will I blog about? With the whole world at my disposal, I’m finding it extremely difficult to choose one single topic which will truly satisfy me with my blog.
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