Word on Street started as a vague idea a few years ago, powered by the reaction of the Venezuelan people against the ever more powerful government and their accompanying media censorship. The facts are that Venezuela got polarized - divided into two extremes: those in favor of the oppressing government, and those against it. The whole country was divided in two, including the media. This resulted in a vicious circle in which biased news and information (provided by either the government or the opposition) polarized the public even more; so the people started to doubt the validity of "official" broadcasts. The people, then started to rely on more alternative forms of media like social networks and information gathering practices like citizen journalism.

Through study, we've found that in many situations like the one in Venezuela, people has always reacted in a similar fashion. During the protests in the Middle East and North Africa (the Arab Spring), social media sites allowed people to connect with one another, exchange information, and even organize protests against their governments. These technologies played an important role in instilling change in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya; therefore showing how a population can be informed through alternative media channels, and can adjust its behavior accordingly.

We believe that a democratic approach to media promoting the creation of a way to supplement the traditional mass media with an emphasis on public service broadcasting and audience participation, through the use of citizen journalism and alternative media channels has a lot of potential not only in these types of scenarios, but everywhere where there are groups of interest that might control what gets covered, what gets published and how biased.