Research seminar at Lund University, Department of Communication and Media. March 13, 2013.

1. Online political movements and networked
activism in Spain. Trends around research
(Work in progress)
José-Manuel Noguera Vivo
Lund, March 13, 2013

2. Proposal: A framework for OSM
Media studies / New media
Social Media / citizen media / participatory journalism
User-Generated Content
Internet studies
Online Social Movements
& Media
Political
Youth studies communication
Participation Find your Disintermediation
Engagement Research Question eDemocracy
Uses and gratifications eGovernment

3. 1. To re-connect young people with politics, understanding their own media
“the internet is (…) a medium that is more
readily associated with young people [and]
young people are increasingly associated with
disengagement from mainstream politics”
(Fenton, 2010)

4. 2. To understand that within youth, internet is everything but revolutionary
“…young people operating within them
consistently downplay and disassociate
themselves from their revolutionary or
transformative dimensions.
Instead, blogs and social networks sites are
described [by young people] simply as
mediums of the everyday”
(Bakardjieva, 2010)

5. 2. To understand that within youth, internet is everything but revolutionary
“Some of the uses are, I argue, a manifestation
of citizenship in everyday life”
(Tufte, 2012: 25)

6. 3. Then, we have to understand political engagement in terms of their everyday
“Understanding this lived reality of young
people is (…) the key to facilitating their
political engagement”
(Robards, 2010)

7. 4. Political disappointment and the internet: a transnational topic to connect
young people with new media
“The new technologies of voice” (Couldry, 2010: 139)
“The disgust becomes a network” (Castells, 2011)
“Enthusiastic uses of media are (…) the top of an
iceberg full of unemployment, dissatisfaction,
frustration, poverty and subdued human right”
(Tufte, 2012: 25)

8. Find your research question
Fenton, 2010
Bakardjieva, 2010 Robards, 2010
Tufte, 2012
RQ (from media perspective): The journalistic dimension of media
strategies within online social movements.
- How are the internet-based media platforms created by young people?
- What are their main goals?
- How are their relations with traditional media and official political platforms?

9. Online Social Movements in Spain: 2004 and 2011
• Background: “Pásalo” (2004), by SMS
March 11, 2004 (3 days before of General Elections).
10 near-simultaneous explosions on four trains in Madrid during rush
hour in the morning. 191 dead people, and 1.858 injured.

10. The Indignados 15-M (2011)
• Not spontaneous movement, but the consequence of a set of events
(Durgan and Sans, 2011):
- General strike in September 29, 2010
- The Sinde Law –against internet downloads-
- Unemployment
- Political corruption
- Cuts on social services
- Publication of Indignez-vous!, by Stéphane Hessel
- The Precarious Youth movement in Portugal… etc.
• 15M was (is) claiming a fairer political system in Spain, not against
Government but political parties in general. But mainstream media
translated the messages according their editorial ideology.

11. The ecosystem of OSM
• 15M is paradigmatic of contemporary social movements within a society
under a model of “networked communication” (Cardoso, 2008):
•  Scenario where are not central nodes of communication, but networks of
people spreading collective messages
•  Mainstream media are not the starting point for the dissemination, but social
and participatory media
•  This decentralized and non-hierarchical structure has its own flows of
communication and rules, redefining concepts such as participation and the idea
of politics itself
•  From media and journalistic perspective. Also concepts like gatekeeping is
modified: in social networks the ideas and proposals are received no matter where
they come from

12. 15M and the networked scenario
• 1) Social networks not just for dissemination, even to have a
livestream of the demonstrations:
• “Attempts by the police to forcefully remove the protestors on 17
May backfired when thousands of supporters descended on the
square after messages describing the police action were posted on
social networking sites such as Twitter and eyewitness videos
were uploaded to YouTube or shown in the mainstream media”
(Hughes, 2011: 408).
• This observance through social networks let the people know the breaking
news with a different Agenda than the one offered by the mainstream
media.

13. 15M and the networked scenario
• 2) Structural and dynamical patterns in social networks such
as Twitter, which shows a lack of hierarchy:
• Borge-Holthoefer J., Rivero A., García I., Cauhé E., Ferrer A., et al. (2011),
“Structural and Dynamical Patterns on Online Social Networks: The
Spanish May 15th Movement as a Case Study”. PLoS ONE 6(8).
• “…opinion leaders emerge spontaneously and minor actants
devote much energy to communicate with them … This
proclivity is coherent with economy of attention” (2011: 8).

14. 15M and the networked scenario
• 3) These online social movements as the first demonstration
of “a new generation of citizens” (Fuster Morell, 2012: 386)
• Under the influence of contemporary movements such as
Free Culture, open software, copyleft licenses and an
intensive use of open and collaborative platforms of
commmunications
• According Fuster Morell, 15M have links with Free Culture in
terms of “its composition, agenda, framing, and
organizational logic” (2012: 386).

15. Specific flows of 15M
• 1) The role of mainstream media during the coverage of first
days of 15M was clearly disappointing:
Info related to the 15M at
the frontpage of main
spanish newspapers:
(Source: numeroteca.org)

16. Specific flows of 15M
• 2) If someone wanted to know what was happening at the squares the
first days, the mentioned graphic shows clearly that newspapers were not
the best way to do it.
But the conversation was
growing at the social
networks. Map of relations
about 15M on Twitter:
(Borge-Holthoefer, 2011)

17. Specific flows of 15M
• 3) Who are the main actors driving content and creating relations about the
15M on Twitter?
• Six categories to analyze the actors: professional media, individual influencers,
politicians-political, journalists (as individuals), 15M related sites, platforms (providers
of third party content: photo, video…)

18. Specific flows of 15M
• 4) Low presence of professional journalistic discourse on social media
Non-professional media (15M related sites) and individual influencers not related to
journalism are representing more than a half of the content (53%).
Low presence of the official political discourse (7%) within a social movement that
paradoxically is demanding to politicians more engagement with the people.
The (still) low presence of personal accounts of journalists (7%), within a platform like
Twitter, which is drawing “its own media logic” (Hermida, 2010), where journalists
have important roles and individual challenges related to their personal branding.

19. Open research questions
• Contemporary social movements and online activism have their own
media rules and it is a challenge for the professional media, which still do
not find their place and their role.
• Reactions of mainstream media can be described as a simple eco of
citizen coverages, coverages we could label the most whatever (the most
viewed, the most shared, the most linked…).
• We need more research related to the media logic of social networks and
how (and why) the messages of these online movements are spread it on
Facebook, Twitter, blogs…

20. Open research questions (II)
• Are you going to explain “the politics” in terms of something
that happens once every four years to a generation of young
people who is commenting, voting, publishing, sharing and
linking everyday?
(Adapted from Dolors-Reig, 2012)
 They understand politics and participation under their own media, so we
need a better and deeper understanding of these media.
 Online social movements is a perfect scenario to analyze the new media
used by the young people who still is engaged with politics.