Rusu+Borțun and ZYX Books sign the “electoral” campaign: Choose Maria Ressa! A Nobel laureate for Bucharest.
If you passed by the Bookfest Book Fair at Romexpo, you surely saw at the entrance an electoral tent displaying the smile of a woman with Asian features. A candidate for the Mayor’s office? A Filipina? Aren’t they more commonly associated in the collective mind with the profiles of nannies in northern Bucharest, rather than political figures in a campaign? And why haven’t we heard of her? Is she allowed to promote herself here? Is something being given away for free?
These are just a few of the legitimate questions raised by the “electoral” tent of Maria Ressa, a Filipino journalist awarded the Nobel Prize, whose book – “How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future” – was recently published in Romanian by ZYX Books.
Maria Ressa is not running for the Mayor’s office in Bucharest, but she knows a lot about democracy, elections, freedom of expression, fake news, and their circulation on social media, especially in volatile contexts such as election periods, the recent global pandemic, or war. In the Philippines, she was sentenced to over 100 years in prison for exposing the corruption of President Rodrigo Duterte, and she faced an unprecedented wave of online violence. In her book, Maria Ressa reveals the connection between autocratic regimes (led by Duterte, Trump, or Putin) and the tech companies behind social media platforms – the place where most of us get (and also misinform ourselves) our news.
“When I started reading Maria Ressa’s book How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future, I felt like I was becoming a more informed voter. That’s how the idea came about to position the author of a newly launched book about democracy in Romania as a candidate for this year’s elections. By choosing Maria Ressa and reading her book, I believe we can become a bit more aware of the democratic exercise we have at our disposal,” says Cătălin Rusu, creative director at Rusu+Bortun.
The campaign is intentionally run in electoral communication contexts: posters, banners on websites presenting political campaigns, street billboards, and activations around the electoral tent at the Bookfest book fair at Romexpo.
Choose Maria Ressa aims to raise awareness about the potential risks that voter apathy can cause, the indifference towards the corruption actions of politicians who are supposed to represent the public interest, and it indirectly encourages the public to be conscious and present in the public space by exercising their democratic rights.
ZYX Books is a small publisher, but it is part of a larger family of online communities within the ZYX Group. It publishes non-fiction titles in fields such as practical psychology, mental health, journalism, innovative ideas, society, memoirs, and emotional education books for children.
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