The project ecke:sócrates:
Brazil is facing a huge challenge: The football World Cup 2014. Much is written and said about it already in the media all over the world, of course about football, but also about the social issues that brazil is dealing with right now, like corruption, violence, insufficient educational and health systems and the wide gap between rich and poor. However, it is possible that during the world cup, football will move into the focus of the german media and will suppress these other important topics.
The project “ecke:sócrates” aims at filling this gap: It is an online journal that reports during the whole World Cup directly from Brazil, from the streets. It will cover stories from four different major cities (São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro – one city per week) and focus on the political, social, cultural, economic stories that are directly or indirectly linked to the World Cup. What are the personal stories behind this massive event? Of course the journal (which is mainly written in german) cannot entirely cover everything that is relevant during the World Cup, but maybe it can become an alternative to other german media offers. ecke:sócrates hopes to reach people who are on the one hand interested in football but on the other hand also want to know more about the country Brazil.
Why the name “ecke:sócrates”?
“Ecke” is the german word for corner kick. And a corner is one of the most interesting situations in football. On the one hand it can be promising and many goals were scored after a corner kick, on the other hand many useless corners, where exactly nothing happens, exist as well. In my opinion Brasil is a country that has gotten a corner kick: The World Cup 2014. It can be a chance, for example to draw the world’s attention to the country close to the elections 2014, but it could also be not more than a big waste of money. How will this “corner kick” end for Brasil? The other part of the Name, “Sócrates”, is chosen because the personality of Sócrates combines various topics: Football, Democracy, Culture, Social issues. These are topics that ecke:sócrates will write about as well.
