Emiliano Treré | Cardiff University (original) (raw)
Journal Articles by Emiliano Treré
Information, Communication & Society, 2020
Drawing on one hundred interviews with activists, this article examines the relationship between ... more Drawing on one hundred interviews with activists, this article examines the relationship between livestreaming and the democratic cultures of the 15M and Occupy movements. The article investigates how the technical affordances of livestreaming – immediacy, rawness, liveness and embedded/embodied perspective – connect with the movements’ understandings of how democracy should be practiced, specifically in terms of political equality, participation and transparency. Our findings identify four sources of tension in the relationship between livestreaming and democratic cultures. Firstly, the use of livestreaming was associated with a radical interpretation of transparency as near-total visibility, which gave rise to tensions around self-surveillance. Secondly, the information overload created through the practice of radical transparency was in tension with the movement's accountability processes. Thirdly, live streamers attempted to offer an unvarnished access to truth by providing unedited and raw video from the streets. Yet their embodied and subjective first-person perspective was associated with tensions around their power to shape the broadcast. Finally, while livestreaming was used to facilitate equal participation in the movement, participation through the livestream took the meaning of equal access to the experience of the squares, rather than equal power in the decision-making process. Our research reveals that despite the national particularities of the contexts in which they arose, Occupy and the 15M were extremely similar in their interpretations and practices of livestreaming and democracy.
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Barranquero, Alejandro & Treré, Emiliano (2021). Comunicación alternativa y comunitaria. La conformación del campo en Europa y el diálogo con América Latina. Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación, 146, 119-136., 2021
En el siguiente artículo se hace un balance de la historia y actualidad del campo de la comunicac... more En el siguiente artículo se hace un balance de la historia y actualidad del campo de la comunicación alternativa y comunitaria en el contexto europeo y estadounidense y se compara dicha tradición con los desarrollos latinoamericanos con el fin de establecer semejanzas y discontinuidades. Apoyados en un marco de investigación comparada y revisión crítica documental, señalamos la necesidad de tender puentes entre dichas comunidades académicas de cara a fortalecer el diálogo interdisciplinar e interregional. [en] This article maps the main historical traditions and contemporary debates in the field of alternative and community communication in the European and US contexts, and compares these research frameworks with Latin American theory with the aim of finding similarities and differences. Based on comparative research and critical literature review, this work raises the need for building bridges between European research and the long tradition of Latin American studies in order to strengthen an interdisciplinary and interregional dialogue
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Media, Culture and Society, 2020
Disconnection has recently come to the forefront of public discussions as an antidote to an incre... more Disconnection has recently come to the forefront of public discussions as an antidote to an increasing saturation with digital technologies. Yet experiences with disconnection are often reduced to a form of disengagement that diminishes their political impact. Disconnective practices focused on health and well-being are easily appropriated by big tech corporations, defusing their transformative potential into the very dynamics of digital capitalism. In contrast, a long tradition of critical thought, from Joseph Weizenbaum to Jaron Lanier passing through hacktivism, demonstrates that engagement with digital technologies is instrumental to develop critique and resistance against the paradoxes of digital societies. Drawing from this tradition, this article proposes the concept of "Disconnection-through-Engagement" to illuminate situated practices that mobilize disconnection in order to improve critical engagement with digital technologies and platforms. Hybridity, anonymity, and hacking are examined as three forms of Disconnection-through-Engagement, and a call to decommodify disconnection and recast it as a source of collective critique to digital capitalism is put forward.
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Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2018
Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has... more Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has grown exponentially in the last few years, following episodes of increasingly intense contention around the globe. This inquiry has produced not only several valuable and illuminating insights but also many superficial and flawed accounts of the role of (digital) technology within contemporary protests. In this commentary, I will tackle some of the key points raised by Lim’s monograph. I start by addressing her claim that the Internet has become more “local” in contemporary movements. Then, I provide a socioeconomic excursus on the crisis of the middle class under financial capitalism that can integrate her reflections on the propelling role of middle classes in recent contentious episodes. To escape the enchantment of techno- logical novelty, I also address the need to examine the historical communicative conditions of movements. I reflect on the radical media imagination, media imaginaries, and the sublime of digital activism. Next, I focus on multidimensionality of media hybridity within contemporary movements. I conclude by offering my perspective on the emergence of a new digital grammar of protest and on the enduring role of precarious bodies in the space of appearance.
These reflections can help clarify some of the most common misconceptions around the media/movement dynamic; at the same time, they shed additional light on the most promising paths of inquiry that have unfolded within this fascinating research domain. Before starting my commentary, I briefly describe the case studies I use to sustain my arguments. The case studies that ground this commentary drawn on more than 10 years of research on the interrelations between social movements and digital media technologies. They are introduced below in the order in which I researched them.
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This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communica... more This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communication engaged during anti-austerity protests by the Indignados in Spain, the precarious generation in Italy, and the Aganaktismenoi in Greece. Drawing on 60 semi-structured interviews with activists and independent media producers involved in the 2011 wave of contention, we bring together social movement and communications theoretical frameworks to present a comparative critical analysis of digital protest media imaginaries. After examining the different socio-political and protest media contexts of the three countries translocally, our critical analysis emphasizes the emergence of three different imaginaries: in Spain the digital protest media imaginary was technopolitical, grounded in the politics and political economies of communication technologies emerging from the free culture movement; in Italy this imaginary was techno-fragmented, lacking cohesion, and failed to bring together old and new protest media logics; and finally in Greece it was techno-pragmatic, envisioned according to practical objectives that reflected the diverse politics and desires of media makers rather than the strictly technological or political affordances of the digital media forms and platforms. This research reveals how pivotal the temporal and geographical dimensions are when analyzed using theoretical perspectives from both communications and social movement research; moreover it emphasizes the importance of studying translocal digital protest media imaginaries as they shape movement repertoires of contention and communication; both elements are crucial to better understanding the challenges, limitations, successes and opportunities for digital protest media.
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Varias corrientes de la literatura sobre compromiso social, medios digitales y big data conciben ... more Varias corrientes de la literatura sobre compromiso social, medios digitales y big data conciben las plataformas digitales como un atajo hacia la rendición de cuentas gubernamental y el empoderamiento de la ciudadanía. Según estas visiones, las redes sociales y las nuevas posibilidades brindadas por el análisis de grandes datos representan la solución a las problemáticas de las democracias contemporáneas. A partir de un análisis crítico de diversos fenómenos sociales y políticos del México actual, este artículo demuestra que distintos partidos políticos y Gobiernos han usado con éxito nuevas formas de represión algorítmica con la intención de fabricar el consentimiento, sabotear la disidencia, amenazar y vigilar a activistas y apropiarse de los datos personales de los ciudadanos. El artículo argumenta que estas nuevas estrategias muestran claramente las limitaciones de las plataformas digitales —y de las redes sociales en particular— para la participación democrática, ya que los activistas tienen que luchar contra sofisticadas técnicas de control y represión que adoptan y manipulan eficazmente las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación. Por último, se exponen unas consideraciones más amplias sobre los límites y los beneficios de las nuevas formas de resistencia algorítmica en el actual escenario tecnopolítico, proponiendo un enfoque tecnoambivalente a las tecnologías digitales.
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This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the ca... more This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the case study of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle/5 Star Movement (5SM) lead by comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo. We argue that the political success of the 5SM was largely dependent on a process of technological fetishism of the Net as an autonomous political agent. We also contend that this process has enabled the party leaders to build an ideology of the movement and represent the 5SM as a grassroots movement based on horizontal networks, participatory democracy, and characterized by the absence of leadership. Conversely, we claim that the digital rhetoric of horizontality, lack of leadership and spontaneity of the party is used to mask, facilitate and reinforce the authority of Beppe Grillo as political leader, thus forging a new type of authoritarianism that is supported and legitimated through the everyday construction of digital discourse.
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Various strands of literature on civic engagement, ‘big data’ and open government view digital te... more Various strands of literature on civic engagement, ‘big data’ and open government view digital technologies as the key to easier government accountability and citizens’ empowerment, and the solution to many of the problems of contemporary democracies. Drawing on a critical analysis of contemporary Mexican social and political phenomena, and on a two-yearlong ethnography with the #YoSoy132 networked movement, this article demonstrates that digital tools have been successfully deployed by Mexican parties and governments in order to manufacture consent, sabotage dissidence, threaten activists, and gather personal data without citizens’ agreement. These new algorithmic strategies, it is contended, clearly
show that there is nothing inherently democratic in digital communication technologies, and that citizens and activists have to struggle against increasingly sophisticated techniques of control and repression that exploit the very mechanisms that many consider to be emancipatory technologies
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Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising stra... more Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising strand of literature that has emerged in the last years to overcome the communicative reductionism permeating the study of the relation between social movements and communication technologies. However, contributions that apply ecological visions to protest are scattered, and only seldom connect their analyses to more general media ecological frameworks. The article critically reviews and classifies the diverse strands of scholarship that adopt the ecological metaphor in their exploration of activism, and connects them with the more general literature on media and communication ecologies. Moreover, it extracts the constitutive elements of this literature that can help scholars to better address the complexity of communication within social movements, and it articulates four key lessons that a media ecology lens brings to the understanding of media and protest. Finally, the article further demonstrates the strengths of this approach through an illustration of the preliminary findings of an ongoing investigation on the 15M movement in Spain.
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In this conversation, professor and leading scholar on global social movements and contemporary p... more In this conversation, professor and leading scholar on global social movements and contemporary protest Geoffrey Pleyers maps and critically reflects on the main battlefields of Latin American struggles, from resistance over land dispossession and extractivism to conflicts over information control and the quality of democracy, from the battle against the neoliberal privatization of public education to the struggles for justice against impunity and violence. He then situates the role of digital media within a multifaceted scenario where powerful mainstream media and political elites are colluded, independent journalists are threatened and struggle to get their voice heard, and governments invest immense resources to spy on citizens and to influence public opinion. While recognizing the importance of the Internet to pursue social change in the Latin American context, Pleyers urges us to look at the broader social, political, and economic picture in order to understand the extent of the transformations on the continent.
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In this conversation, Bernardo Gutiérrez examines the multifaceted roles played by digital media ... more In this conversation, Bernardo Gutiérrez examines the multifaceted roles played by digital media technologies in the processes of resistance and emancipation of several Latin American countries, with a particular focus on Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. Relying on his extensive experience as a journalist and activist, and on the preliminary findings of his new project funded by Oxfam, an international confederation to find solutions to poverty, an injustice around the world, he argues that the similarities among these new mobilizations have to be looked for in their technopolitical architecture and in the forms of organization-action they assume, rather than in their demands, shared ideologies, and grievances.
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The role of digital communication within contemporary struggles in Latin America has not received... more The role of digital communication within contemporary struggles in Latin America has not received the consideration it deserves, especially internationally in English-language scholarship. The articles in this Special Section aim to fill this gap and provide key guidelines to navigate the multifaceted tapestry of digital media resistance in Latin America. We illustrate that in the Latin American scenario digital technologies have been appropriated in multiple, even contradictory, ways to fight against inequalities, challenge highly concentrated media ecologies, create counterhegemonic spaces, and build bridges among organizations. Moreover, we point out that in order to understand the communicative dynamics of contemporary Latin American struggles it is necessary to establish a dialogue between diverse traditions and conceptual frameworks. We conclude by summarizing the arguments and reviewing the significance of the contributions to this Special Section.
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Information, Communication & Society, 18:8, 901-915., 2015
This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively... more This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively disregarded collective identity and the importance of internal communicative dynamics in contemporary social movements, in favour of the study of the technological affordances and the organizational capabilities of social media. Based on a two-year multimodal ethnography of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement, the article demonstrates that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms. Through the appropriations of social media, Mexican students were able to oppose the negative identification fabricated by the PRI party, reclaim their agency and their role as heirs of a long tradition of rebellion, generate collective identification processes, and find ‘comfort zones’ to lower the costs of activism, reinforcing their internal cohesion and solidarity. The article stresses the importance of the internal communicative dynamics that develop in the backstage of social media (Facebook chats and groups) and through instant messaging services (WhatsApp), thus rediscovering the pivotal linkage between collective identity and internal communication that characterized the first wave of research on digital social movements. The findings point out how that internal cohesion and collective identity are fundamentally shaped and reinforced in the social media backstage by practices of ‘ludic activism’, which indicates that social media represent not only the organizational backbone of contemporary social movements, but also multifaceted ecologies where a new, expressive and humorous ‘communicative resistance grammar’ emerges.
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Information, Communication & Society, 2015
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This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the ca... more This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the case study of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle/5 Star Movement (5SM) lead by comedian- turned-politician Beppe Grillo. We argue that the political success of the 5SM was largely dependent on a process of technological fetishism of the Net as an autonomous political agent. We also contend that this process has enabled the party leaders to build an ideology of the movement and represent the 5SM as a grassroots movement based on horizontal networks, participatory democracy, and characterized by the absence of leadership. Conversely, we claim that the digital rhetoric of horizontality, lack of leadership and spontaneity of the party is used to mask, facilitate and reinforce the authority of Beppe Grillo as political leader, thus forging a new type of authoritarianism that is supported and legitimated through the everyday construction of digital discourse.
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Communication Theory, Volume 24, Issue 3, pages 252–271, 2014
The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, med... more The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a critical review of the literature about media and movements. Secondly, it offers an understanding of social movements as processes in which activists perform actions according to different temporalities and connect this understanding with the use of the 3 media related concepts mentioned above. Then, the resulting conceptual framework is applied to the Italian student movements. In the conclusion, benefits and challenges in the use of such framework are considered and lines of inquiry on current movements are suggested.
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Challenging mainstream media, documenting real life and sharing with the community: An analysis of the motivations for producing citizen journalism in a post-disaster city, Jan 20, 2014
The aim of this article is to explore the motivations that drove many ordinary people to produce ... more The aim of this article is to explore the motivations that drove many ordinary people to produce citizen journalism after the earthquake that destroyed the Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009. Using in-depth interviews, we investigate the motivations and the obstacles underlying the publication of grassroots information related to the post- earthquake situation. Findings highlight that people were largely motivated to upload their content online: (1) to contrast the quake-related news provided by Italian mainstream media with their own perceptions; (2) to document their lives and the ‘real situation’ of the city; and (3) to share their points of view with other citizens trying to re-establish online the ties broken offline because of the catastrophe. Analysis shows that these non-professional journalists also had to face a series of obstacles, such as risks of fragmentation and lack of professionalism, funding and visibility.
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Redes.com, Dec 2013
This paper aims at interpreting the relationship between social movements and communica- tion tec... more This paper aims at interpreting the relationship between social movements and communica- tion technologies, from the perspective of a set of critical frameworks which, in recent years, have warned of the processes of sublimation and creation of myths linked to the birth of each “new” technology. Within this context, civic movements are observed both as spaces of reproduction of enthusiastic discourses on ICTs, at the service of diverse power spheres -corporations, governments, media, etc.-, as well as of experimentation and technological appropriation, in which, through daily practices, a more complex and demystified perspec- tive of communication technologies is produced. We propose a chronological analysis across three case studies, based in different contexts, which aim at illustrating the premature ap- proximations to the role of communication technologies in social uprisings: the Zapatista informational guerrilla, the ‘smart mobs’ in the Philippines, the ‘Anomalous Wave’ and the ‘5 Stars Movement’ in the Italian context. We conclude underlining the need to move towards the collective construction of knowledge through synergies between academia and social movements as a way to question techno-euphoria as well as to avoid the mistakes of the past.
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New Media & Society, Dec 1, 2012
Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers wh... more Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers who see the development of the Web as being divided into three different stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article will argue that this understanding – although important when analysing the political economy of the Web – can have serious limitations when applied to everyday contexts and the lived experience of technologies. Drawing from the context of the Italian student movement, we show that the division between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is often deconstructed by activists’ media practices. Therefore, we highlight the importance of developing an approach that – by focusing on practice – draws attention to the interplay between Web platforms rather than their transition. This approach, we believe, is essential to the understanding of the complex relationship between Web developments, human negotiations and everyday social contexts.
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Information, Communication & Society, 2020
Drawing on one hundred interviews with activists, this article examines the relationship between ... more Drawing on one hundred interviews with activists, this article examines the relationship between livestreaming and the democratic cultures of the 15M and Occupy movements. The article investigates how the technical affordances of livestreaming – immediacy, rawness, liveness and embedded/embodied perspective – connect with the movements’ understandings of how democracy should be practiced, specifically in terms of political equality, participation and transparency. Our findings identify four sources of tension in the relationship between livestreaming and democratic cultures. Firstly, the use of livestreaming was associated with a radical interpretation of transparency as near-total visibility, which gave rise to tensions around self-surveillance. Secondly, the information overload created through the practice of radical transparency was in tension with the movement's accountability processes. Thirdly, live streamers attempted to offer an unvarnished access to truth by providing unedited and raw video from the streets. Yet their embodied and subjective first-person perspective was associated with tensions around their power to shape the broadcast. Finally, while livestreaming was used to facilitate equal participation in the movement, participation through the livestream took the meaning of equal access to the experience of the squares, rather than equal power in the decision-making process. Our research reveals that despite the national particularities of the contexts in which they arose, Occupy and the 15M were extremely similar in their interpretations and practices of livestreaming and democracy.
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Barranquero, Alejandro & Treré, Emiliano (2021). Comunicación alternativa y comunitaria. La conformación del campo en Europa y el diálogo con América Latina. Chasqui. Revista Latinoamericana de Comunicación, 146, 119-136., 2021
En el siguiente artículo se hace un balance de la historia y actualidad del campo de la comunicac... more En el siguiente artículo se hace un balance de la historia y actualidad del campo de la comunicación alternativa y comunitaria en el contexto europeo y estadounidense y se compara dicha tradición con los desarrollos latinoamericanos con el fin de establecer semejanzas y discontinuidades. Apoyados en un marco de investigación comparada y revisión crítica documental, señalamos la necesidad de tender puentes entre dichas comunidades académicas de cara a fortalecer el diálogo interdisciplinar e interregional. [en] This article maps the main historical traditions and contemporary debates in the field of alternative and community communication in the European and US contexts, and compares these research frameworks with Latin American theory with the aim of finding similarities and differences. Based on comparative research and critical literature review, this work raises the need for building bridges between European research and the long tradition of Latin American studies in order to strengthen an interdisciplinary and interregional dialogue
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Media, Culture and Society, 2020
Disconnection has recently come to the forefront of public discussions as an antidote to an incre... more Disconnection has recently come to the forefront of public discussions as an antidote to an increasing saturation with digital technologies. Yet experiences with disconnection are often reduced to a form of disengagement that diminishes their political impact. Disconnective practices focused on health and well-being are easily appropriated by big tech corporations, defusing their transformative potential into the very dynamics of digital capitalism. In contrast, a long tradition of critical thought, from Joseph Weizenbaum to Jaron Lanier passing through hacktivism, demonstrates that engagement with digital technologies is instrumental to develop critique and resistance against the paradoxes of digital societies. Drawing from this tradition, this article proposes the concept of "Disconnection-through-Engagement" to illuminate situated practices that mobilize disconnection in order to improve critical engagement with digital technologies and platforms. Hybridity, anonymity, and hacking are examined as three forms of Disconnection-through-Engagement, and a call to decommodify disconnection and recast it as a source of collective critique to digital capitalism is put forward.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journalism & Communication Monographs, 2018
Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has... more Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has grown exponentially in the last few years, following episodes of increasingly intense contention around the globe. This inquiry has produced not only several valuable and illuminating insights but also many superficial and flawed accounts of the role of (digital) technology within contemporary protests. In this commentary, I will tackle some of the key points raised by Lim’s monograph. I start by addressing her claim that the Internet has become more “local” in contemporary movements. Then, I provide a socioeconomic excursus on the crisis of the middle class under financial capitalism that can integrate her reflections on the propelling role of middle classes in recent contentious episodes. To escape the enchantment of techno- logical novelty, I also address the need to examine the historical communicative conditions of movements. I reflect on the radical media imagination, media imaginaries, and the sublime of digital activism. Next, I focus on multidimensionality of media hybridity within contemporary movements. I conclude by offering my perspective on the emergence of a new digital grammar of protest and on the enduring role of precarious bodies in the space of appearance.
These reflections can help clarify some of the most common misconceptions around the media/movement dynamic; at the same time, they shed additional light on the most promising paths of inquiry that have unfolded within this fascinating research domain. Before starting my commentary, I briefly describe the case studies I use to sustain my arguments. The case studies that ground this commentary drawn on more than 10 years of research on the interrelations between social movements and digital media technologies. They are introduced below in the order in which I researched them.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communica... more This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communication engaged during anti-austerity protests by the Indignados in Spain, the precarious generation in Italy, and the Aganaktismenoi in Greece. Drawing on 60 semi-structured interviews with activists and independent media producers involved in the 2011 wave of contention, we bring together social movement and communications theoretical frameworks to present a comparative critical analysis of digital protest media imaginaries. After examining the different socio-political and protest media contexts of the three countries translocally, our critical analysis emphasizes the emergence of three different imaginaries: in Spain the digital protest media imaginary was technopolitical, grounded in the politics and political economies of communication technologies emerging from the free culture movement; in Italy this imaginary was techno-fragmented, lacking cohesion, and failed to bring together old and new protest media logics; and finally in Greece it was techno-pragmatic, envisioned according to practical objectives that reflected the diverse politics and desires of media makers rather than the strictly technological or political affordances of the digital media forms and platforms. This research reveals how pivotal the temporal and geographical dimensions are when analyzed using theoretical perspectives from both communications and social movement research; moreover it emphasizes the importance of studying translocal digital protest media imaginaries as they shape movement repertoires of contention and communication; both elements are crucial to better understanding the challenges, limitations, successes and opportunities for digital protest media.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Varias corrientes de la literatura sobre compromiso social, medios digitales y big data conciben ... more Varias corrientes de la literatura sobre compromiso social, medios digitales y big data conciben las plataformas digitales como un atajo hacia la rendición de cuentas gubernamental y el empoderamiento de la ciudadanía. Según estas visiones, las redes sociales y las nuevas posibilidades brindadas por el análisis de grandes datos representan la solución a las problemáticas de las democracias contemporáneas. A partir de un análisis crítico de diversos fenómenos sociales y políticos del México actual, este artículo demuestra que distintos partidos políticos y Gobiernos han usado con éxito nuevas formas de represión algorítmica con la intención de fabricar el consentimiento, sabotear la disidencia, amenazar y vigilar a activistas y apropiarse de los datos personales de los ciudadanos. El artículo argumenta que estas nuevas estrategias muestran claramente las limitaciones de las plataformas digitales —y de las redes sociales en particular— para la participación democrática, ya que los activistas tienen que luchar contra sofisticadas técnicas de control y represión que adoptan y manipulan eficazmente las nuevas tecnologías de la comunicación. Por último, se exponen unas consideraciones más amplias sobre los límites y los beneficios de las nuevas formas de resistencia algorítmica en el actual escenario tecnopolítico, proponiendo un enfoque tecnoambivalente a las tecnologías digitales.
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This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the ca... more This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the case study of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle/5 Star Movement (5SM) lead by comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo. We argue that the political success of the 5SM was largely dependent on a process of technological fetishism of the Net as an autonomous political agent. We also contend that this process has enabled the party leaders to build an ideology of the movement and represent the 5SM as a grassroots movement based on horizontal networks, participatory democracy, and characterized by the absence of leadership. Conversely, we claim that the digital rhetoric of horizontality, lack of leadership and spontaneity of the party is used to mask, facilitate and reinforce the authority of Beppe Grillo as political leader, thus forging a new type of authoritarianism that is supported and legitimated through the everyday construction of digital discourse.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Various strands of literature on civic engagement, ‘big data’ and open government view digital te... more Various strands of literature on civic engagement, ‘big data’ and open government view digital technologies as the key to easier government accountability and citizens’ empowerment, and the solution to many of the problems of contemporary democracies. Drawing on a critical analysis of contemporary Mexican social and political phenomena, and on a two-yearlong ethnography with the #YoSoy132 networked movement, this article demonstrates that digital tools have been successfully deployed by Mexican parties and governments in order to manufacture consent, sabotage dissidence, threaten activists, and gather personal data without citizens’ agreement. These new algorithmic strategies, it is contended, clearly
show that there is nothing inherently democratic in digital communication technologies, and that citizens and activists have to struggle against increasingly sophisticated techniques of control and repression that exploit the very mechanisms that many consider to be emancipatory technologies
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising stra... more Studies adopting the media ecology metaphor to investigate social movements form a promising strand of literature that has emerged in the last years to overcome the communicative reductionism permeating the study of the relation between social movements and communication technologies. However, contributions that apply ecological visions to protest are scattered, and only seldom connect their analyses to more general media ecological frameworks. The article critically reviews and classifies the diverse strands of scholarship that adopt the ecological metaphor in their exploration of activism, and connects them with the more general literature on media and communication ecologies. Moreover, it extracts the constitutive elements of this literature that can help scholars to better address the complexity of communication within social movements, and it articulates four key lessons that a media ecology lens brings to the understanding of media and protest. Finally, the article further demonstrates the strengths of this approach through an illustration of the preliminary findings of an ongoing investigation on the 15M movement in Spain.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In this conversation, professor and leading scholar on global social movements and contemporary p... more In this conversation, professor and leading scholar on global social movements and contemporary protest Geoffrey Pleyers maps and critically reflects on the main battlefields of Latin American struggles, from resistance over land dispossession and extractivism to conflicts over information control and the quality of democracy, from the battle against the neoliberal privatization of public education to the struggles for justice against impunity and violence. He then situates the role of digital media within a multifaceted scenario where powerful mainstream media and political elites are colluded, independent journalists are threatened and struggle to get their voice heard, and governments invest immense resources to spy on citizens and to influence public opinion. While recognizing the importance of the Internet to pursue social change in the Latin American context, Pleyers urges us to look at the broader social, political, and economic picture in order to understand the extent of the transformations on the continent.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
In this conversation, Bernardo Gutiérrez examines the multifaceted roles played by digital media ... more In this conversation, Bernardo Gutiérrez examines the multifaceted roles played by digital media technologies in the processes of resistance and emancipation of several Latin American countries, with a particular focus on Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. Relying on his extensive experience as a journalist and activist, and on the preliminary findings of his new project funded by Oxfam, an international confederation to find solutions to poverty, an injustice around the world, he argues that the similarities among these new mobilizations have to be looked for in their technopolitical architecture and in the forms of organization-action they assume, rather than in their demands, shared ideologies, and grievances.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The role of digital communication within contemporary struggles in Latin America has not received... more The role of digital communication within contemporary struggles in Latin America has not received the consideration it deserves, especially internationally in English-language scholarship. The articles in this Special Section aim to fill this gap and provide key guidelines to navigate the multifaceted tapestry of digital media resistance in Latin America. We illustrate that in the Latin American scenario digital technologies have been appropriated in multiple, even contradictory, ways to fight against inequalities, challenge highly concentrated media ecologies, create counterhegemonic spaces, and build bridges among organizations. Moreover, we point out that in order to understand the communicative dynamics of contemporary Latin American struggles it is necessary to establish a dialogue between diverse traditions and conceptual frameworks. We conclude by summarizing the arguments and reviewing the significance of the contributions to this Special Section.
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Information, Communication & Society, 18:8, 901-915., 2015
This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively... more This article starts from the recognition that digital social movements studies have progressively disregarded collective identity and the importance of internal communicative dynamics in contemporary social movements, in favour of the study of the technological affordances and the organizational capabilities of social media. Based on a two-year multimodal ethnography of the Mexican #YoSoy132 movement, the article demonstrates that the concept of collective identity is still able to yield relevant insights into the study of current movements, especially in connection with the use of social media platforms. Through the appropriations of social media, Mexican students were able to oppose the negative identification fabricated by the PRI party, reclaim their agency and their role as heirs of a long tradition of rebellion, generate collective identification processes, and find ‘comfort zones’ to lower the costs of activism, reinforcing their internal cohesion and solidarity. The article stresses the importance of the internal communicative dynamics that develop in the backstage of social media (Facebook chats and groups) and through instant messaging services (WhatsApp), thus rediscovering the pivotal linkage between collective identity and internal communication that characterized the first wave of research on digital social movements. The findings point out how that internal cohesion and collective identity are fundamentally shaped and reinforced in the social media backstage by practices of ‘ludic activism’, which indicates that social media represent not only the organizational backbone of contemporary social movements, but also multifaceted ecologies where a new, expressive and humorous ‘communicative resistance grammar’ emerges.
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Information, Communication & Society, 2015
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This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the ca... more This article responds to current critiques about the myths of digital democracy drawing on the case study of the Italian Movimento 5 Stelle/5 Star Movement (5SM) lead by comedian- turned-politician Beppe Grillo. We argue that the political success of the 5SM was largely dependent on a process of technological fetishism of the Net as an autonomous political agent. We also contend that this process has enabled the party leaders to build an ideology of the movement and represent the 5SM as a grassroots movement based on horizontal networks, participatory democracy, and characterized by the absence of leadership. Conversely, we claim that the digital rhetoric of horizontality, lack of leadership and spontaneity of the party is used to mask, facilitate and reinforce the authority of Beppe Grillo as political leader, thus forging a new type of authoritarianism that is supported and legitimated through the everyday construction of digital discourse.
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Communication Theory, Volume 24, Issue 3, pages 252–271, 2014
The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, med... more The aim of this article is to explore the use of 3 concepts of media studies—media practices, mediation, and mediatization—in order to build a conceptual framework to study social movements and the media. The article first provides a critical review of the literature about media and movements. Secondly, it offers an understanding of social movements as processes in which activists perform actions according to different temporalities and connect this understanding with the use of the 3 media related concepts mentioned above. Then, the resulting conceptual framework is applied to the Italian student movements. In the conclusion, benefits and challenges in the use of such framework are considered and lines of inquiry on current movements are suggested.
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Challenging mainstream media, documenting real life and sharing with the community: An analysis of the motivations for producing citizen journalism in a post-disaster city, Jan 20, 2014
The aim of this article is to explore the motivations that drove many ordinary people to produce ... more The aim of this article is to explore the motivations that drove many ordinary people to produce citizen journalism after the earthquake that destroyed the Italian city of L’Aquila in 2009. Using in-depth interviews, we investigate the motivations and the obstacles underlying the publication of grassroots information related to the post- earthquake situation. Findings highlight that people were largely motivated to upload their content online: (1) to contrast the quake-related news provided by Italian mainstream media with their own perceptions; (2) to document their lives and the ‘real situation’ of the city; and (3) to share their points of view with other citizens trying to re-establish online the ties broken offline because of the catastrophe. Analysis shows that these non-professional journalists also had to face a series of obstacles, such as risks of fragmentation and lack of professionalism, funding and visibility.
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Redes.com, Dec 2013
This paper aims at interpreting the relationship between social movements and communica- tion tec... more This paper aims at interpreting the relationship between social movements and communica- tion technologies, from the perspective of a set of critical frameworks which, in recent years, have warned of the processes of sublimation and creation of myths linked to the birth of each “new” technology. Within this context, civic movements are observed both as spaces of reproduction of enthusiastic discourses on ICTs, at the service of diverse power spheres -corporations, governments, media, etc.-, as well as of experimentation and technological appropriation, in which, through daily practices, a more complex and demystified perspec- tive of communication technologies is produced. We propose a chronological analysis across three case studies, based in different contexts, which aim at illustrating the premature ap- proximations to the role of communication technologies in social uprisings: the Zapatista informational guerrilla, the ‘smart mobs’ in the Philippines, the ‘Anomalous Wave’ and the ‘5 Stars Movement’ in the Italian context. We conclude underlining the need to move towards the collective construction of knowledge through synergies between academia and social movements as a way to question techno-euphoria as well as to avoid the mistakes of the past.
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New Media & Society, Dec 1, 2012
Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers wh... more Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers who see the development of the Web as being divided into three different stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article will argue that this understanding – although important when analysing the political economy of the Web – can have serious limitations when applied to everyday contexts and the lived experience of technologies. Drawing from the context of the Italian student movement, we show that the division between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is often deconstructed by activists’ media practices. Therefore, we highlight the importance of developing an approach that – by focusing on practice – draws attention to the interplay between Web platforms rather than their transition. This approach, we believe, is essential to the understanding of the complex relationship between Web developments, human negotiations and everyday social contexts.
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Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung FES (Fundación Friedrich Ebert), 2020
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In: Meikle, G. ed. The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism, Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 367-375., 2018
Discourses on algorithms are increasingly populating the media and pervading public conversations... more Discourses on algorithms are increasingly populating the media and pervading public conversations. Newspapers are filled with stories on how algorithmic power is impacting our choices in the realms of politics, journalism, music, sport, research, and healthcare. The recent inclusion of the term in the influential “Digital Keywords” volume (Peters 2016) also signals a growing interest in the concept and its consequences within various fields and strands of research in the academia, and especially within media studies. As Gillespie (2016) has pointed out, the term appears in recent scholarship not only as a noun but also increasingly as an adjective, in relation to issues of identity, culture, ideology, accountability, governance, imaginary and regulation. In this chapter, I focus on the changes that algorithmic power is bringing to the realm of politics and the transformations of digital activism. The chapter begins with a brief outline of the significance of algorithms in digital politics. Then, it focuses on two diverse conceptions and manifestations of algorithmic power in politics (algorithm as propaganda/repression and algorithm as appropriation/ resistance) that emerge from the explorations of two case studies.
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Stephansen, H.C. and Treré, E. (2019) ‘Practice what you preach? Currents, connections, and challenges in theorizing citizen media and practice’. In: Stephansen, H. C. and Treré, E. (eds) Citizen media and practice: currents, connections, challenges. London: Routledge, pp. 1-34., 2019
This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practic... more This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices, identifying the antecedents of the media practice approach in several theoretical traditions and highlighting possible points of convergence between them. Hence, we ground the roots of the practice approach in Latin American communication and media studies, we scrutinize Couldry's conceptualization in connection to theories of practices within the social sciences, and we examine audience research, media anthropology, social movement studies, citizen and alternative media, and Communication for Development and Social Change. The second section takes stock of the current 'state of the art' of practice-focused research on citizen and activist media and develops a critical assessment of how the concept of media practices has been used in recent literature, identifying key strengths and shortcomings. In this section, we also discuss the integration of media practices with other concepts, such as mediation, mediatization, media ecologies, media archeology, media imaginaries, and the public sphere. The third section delineates future directions for research on citizen media and practice, reflecting on some of the challenges facing this growing interdisciplinary field. Here, we illustrate how the media practice approach provides a powerful framework for researching the pressing challenges posed by mediatization and datafication. Further, we highlight the need for deeper theoretical engagement, underline the necessity of dialogue between different traditions, and point out some unresolved issues and limitations. The chapter concludes with an outline of the contributions to this edited collection.
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Treré, E. (2019). Hybrid Media Activism. London: Routledge., 2019
This introduction is divided into two main sections. In the first section, the pars denstruens, t... more This introduction is divided into two main sections. In the first section, the pars denstruens, the three spectres (technological instrumentalism, functionalism, and technological determinism), and the five fallacies (spatial dualism, one-medium fallacy, technological presentism, technological visibility, and alternativeness) of the communicative reductionism that plagues the media/movement literature are critically assessed. In the second section, the pars construens, the case studies, and the methods on which the book relies are illustrated, and a new conceptual vocabulary is proposed in order to restore the communicative complexity of social movements. The conceptual lenses of media practices, ecologies, imaginaries, and algorithms are introduced and illustrated, along with an outline of the sections and the chapters composing the book.
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The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses o... more The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses of communication technologies by social movements and civil society organizations. This chapter tackles the historical and theoretical roots of the notion, by critically examining contributions from different disciplines, regions and strands of literature. First, the chapter outlines the use of technopolitics within technology transfer and scientific innovation, and charts its adoption in studies regarding media and the political sphere. Then, it explores its rediscovery and application at the intersection between the appropriations of Spanish activists and academics, and scrutinizes its extension to Latin America. Next, it examines five key potentialities of the concept, as well as its connections with other recent theorizations, especially derived from Anglo-Saxon scholarship. The chapter concludes by proposing further dialogue between Northern and Southern research communities, as a way to generate more nuanced understandings of everyday activist practices, action research, and socio-political change.
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The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses o... more The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses of communication technologies by social movements and civil society organizations. This chapter tackles the historical and theoretical roots of the notion, by critically examining contributions from different disciplines, regions and strands of literature. First, the chapter outlines the use of technopolitics within technology transfer and scientific innovation, and charts its adoption in studies regarding media and the political sphere. Then, it explores its rediscovery and application at the intersection between the appropriations of Spanish activists and academics, and scrutinizes its extension to Latin America. Next, it examines five key potentialities of the concept, as well as its connections with other recent theorizations, especially derived from Anglo-Saxon scholarship. The chapter concludes by proposing further dialogue between Northern and Southern research communities, as a way to generate more nuanced understandings of everyday activist practices, action research, and socio-political change.
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Candón, J. Y Benítez Eyzaguirre, L. (Eds.) Activismo digital y nuevos modos de ciudadania: Una mirada global
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in Gordon, E. and Mihailidis, P. (Eds.) The Civic Media Reader
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Este artículo se aleja de los análisis superficiales y entusiastas par ofrecer una exploración cr... more Este artículo se aleja de los análisis superficiales y entusiastas par ofrecer una exploración crítica de los alcances y las limitaciones de las prácticas de resistencia que se han desarrollado en los últimos años en el contexto mexicano alrededor de las redes sociales y, en particular, de las videoplataformas online.
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En Rivera Magos, S. (Ed.) "Claves para la comprensión de la cultura digital", 2015
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Critical Perspectives on Social Media and Protest. Between Control and Emancipation
From the Introduction: "As Treré outlines in his contribution to this book, looking particularly... more From the Introduction: "As Treré outlines in his contribution to this book, looking particularly at the #YoSoy132 movement in Mexico, the communication practices around social media by activists are not constitutive of the ‘smooth functioning’ of counterpower through mass self- communication that we find in Castells’s accounts of protest movements, for example, but are constantly plagued by conflicts, clashes, struggles and dis- cord. These conflicts come to manifest themselves in terms of daily interactions and difficulties as activists express concern and discomfort with integrating social media into their protest practices. Issues of ephemerality and weak ties seep through movement interactions by raising questions of authority and belonging in terms of conflicts over who has access and what can be posted on social media platforms in the name of any given protest. Equally, Treré points out, the concern with surveillance on social media platforms prevails within the movements as a ‘light paranoia’ that, in the case of Mexico, eventually manifested itself after Mexican police carried out several arbitrary detentions and human rights violations during a protest, leading many activists to quit social media entirely. Indeed, as Treré outlines, the Mexican context illustrates the extent to which (traditional) politics outside the world of social media continues to constrain and control emerging forms of resistance, both in terms of online and offline practices. That is, we need to look at broader social and political developments in order to understand how and to what extent activists engage with social media for the purposes of protest.
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En Gumucio Dagron, A., Cadavid Bringe, A. (Eds.) Pensar desde la experiencia: La comunicación participativa en el cambio social, Editorial UNIMINUTO, Bogotá, Colombia., Aug 2014
Desde la Introducción de Amparo Cadavid: Treré analiza en el marco de la aguda violencia del ... more Desde la Introducción de Amparo Cadavid:
Treré analiza en el marco de la aguda violencia del actual México, un caso de comunicación de un colectivo de Ciudad Juárez, el Barrio Nómada. Introduce y posiciona el concepto de 'comunicación total' que emerge de la experiencia tratada. Analiza la experiencia del proyecto desde los actuales desarrollos tecnológicos y los obstáculos y dificultades a los cuales se han enfrentado y han debido resolver.
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Cite as: Farinosi, M. & Treré, E. (2014). Social Movements, Social Media and Post-Disaster Resil... more Cite as: Farinosi, M. & Treré, E. (2014). Social Movements, Social Media and Post-Disaster Resilience. Towards an Integrated System of Local Protest. In T. Denison, M. Sarrica, L. Stillman (Eds.), Theories, Practices and Examples for Community and Social Informatics (pp. 63-85). Victoria, Australia: Monash University Publishing.
ABSTRACT
On 6 April 2009 an earthquake occurred in L’Aquila, a small city in the centre of Italy, causing the death of more than 300 people. This tragic event led to a prompt increase in the adoption and use of Internet technologies by local citizens who appropriated social media platforms in order to reconstruct online the offline spaces of socialisation which had been damaged or destroyed by the quake. A year after the tragedy, to protest against the Italian State’s failure to remove the debris from the historical city centre, some citizens decided to flee into the streets with wheelbarrows and autonomously remove the rubble: a new movement later labelled as “The People of the Wheelbarrows” (“PoW”) emerged. These activists aimed at involving the citizenship in the decision processes regarding L’Aquila’s reconstruction, in contrast to the government’s top-down strategies, and at making the public aware of the issue of the debris removal and the urgent need for the historical centre’s re-opening and reconstruction. This paper explores the Internet-related practices of the actors of the PoW. Our findings highlight the existence of an integrated system of local protest characterised by a complex communication ecology based on crossovers between traditional media and multiple digital technologies, and articulated between the online and the offline dimensions.
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Partiendo del asunto que los enfoques clásicos de los movimientos sociales han considerado los me... more Partiendo del asunto que los enfoques clásicos de los movimientos sociales han considerado los medios de comunicación como simples herramientas para alcanzar finalidades prefijadas, este artículo reseña una serie de nuevos enfoques desarrollados por comunicólogos y estudiosos de movimientos sociales, que pretenden ir más allá de una concepción instrumental de la comunicación en la acción colectiva. Estos nuevos enfoques, centrándose en la exploración de las ‘practicas relacionadas con los medios’ de los activistas, revelan la existencia de un complejo ecosistema comunicativo donde diferentes tecnologías se entrelazan continuamente y donde adquieren cada vez más importancia las relaciones, las negociaciones y los conflictos entre viejos y nuevos medios de la comunicación.
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Emiliano Treré hace una investigación sobre el colectivo denominado Barrio Nómada. Este es un ... more Emiliano Treré hace una investigación sobre el colectivo denominado Barrio Nómada. Este es un colectivo de activistas que surge en Ciudad Juarez (México) para rebelarse ‘frente a la muerte’. En este artículo, utilizando diferentes metodologías cualitativas, Emiliano Treré explora las prácticas comunicativas (en particular en los entornos digitales) del colectivo juarense. En primer lugar, explica la idea de ‘comunicación total’ planteada por el colectivo y sugiere que el término ‘ecología alternativa’ resulta más apropiado para entender el complejo entramado entre viejos y nuevos medios. En segundo término, subraya la importancia de las dinámicas entre dimensiones online y offline en las actividades de los activistas, destacando la importancia de las relaciones cara a cara. Finalmente, investiga las estrategias de Barrio Nómada para ‘resistir’ la naturaleza corporativa y los riesgos relacionados con el uso de plataformas 2.0 como Facebook.
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Tosoni, S. ,Tarantino, M., Giacardi, C. (eds.) Media & The City: Urbanism, Technology and Communication , 2013
In 2009 a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck L’Aquila, a thirteenth- century city on the mountains o... more In 2009 a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck L’Aquila, a thirteenth- century city on the mountains of central Italy. The seism caused serious damage to L’Aquila and the surrounding villages, destroying many parts of the medieval centre, killing more than 300 people and leaving 65,000 people homeless. Immediately after the disaster, numerous citizens of L’Aquila started to use Internet platforms on a massive scale in order to voice their opinions and share information related to the actual situation people were undergoing during the post-earthquake phase (Farinosi & Micalizzi, 2012). These online environments offered citizens new channels for reporting, speaking and acting together and substantially contributed to an explosion of citizen journalism practices. An array of social media platforms, blogs and content-sharing sites was flooded with news, posts, comments, videos and photos related to issues regarding the emergency and the post-emergency situation, daily life in L’Aquila after the devastating earthquake, the city’s rebuilding problems, the recovery efforts and the social re-appropriation of public spaces damaged by the seism. This work explores the production of grassroots information in a context that could be described as “out of the ordinary”. We first provide a review of current literature on the phenomenon of citizen journalism (section 2). Then we illustrate the aims and methods adopted (section 3) and describe and discuss the findings of our research (section 4). Finally we draw some conclusions and sketch some future challenges for research into this topic (section 5).
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Farinosi M., Micalizzi A. (eds) NetQuake: Media Digitali e Disastri Naturali. Dieci ricerche empiriche sul ruolo della Rete nel terremoto dell’Aquila, 2013
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Abruzzese, A., Barile, N., Gebhardt J. & Fortunati, L. (eds). The New Television Ecosystem, 2012
"According to several studies, traditional Italian television framed the post- earthquake situati... more "According to several studies, traditional Italian television framed the post- earthquake situation as a “miracle in L’Aquila” and a spectacular of the pain of those involved in the earthquake to impress the TV audience without respect for the feelings of the victims. In contrast to this situation, it seems that, on the Web, the victims of the tragedy could speak with their own voices without any media- tion.
The aim of this chapter is to explore how the dimension of pain was represent- ed on a cross-media platform – FromZero TV – that documented the lives of the people living in the tent camps after the earthquake tragedy. Using qualitative methodologies (video analysis and interviews), we found that this Web TV of- fered a considerate and balanced representation of pain in relation to the victims of the catastrophe. It also emerged that this platform was able to represent grief in a more respectful way adopting the same words and terms of the affected popula- tion, without having to stick to the rules of the traditional television agenda.
From Zero TV thus represents an interesting “experiment” in how new forms of television on the Internet can offer alternative representations of events and give a voice to ordinary people without having to appeal to the exhibitionism of feelings or to stick to the rules of the traditional media agenda."
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Espino Sánchez, G. ¿Cyberrevolución en la política? Mitos y verdades sobre la ciberpolitica 2.0 en México, 2012
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REIS. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2022
Este artículo examina los imaginarios sobre Internet y su influencia en las formas de apropiación... more Este artículo examina los imaginarios sobre Internet y su influencia en las formas de apropiación tecnológica por parte de los movimientos sociales. Se incide en el concepto de mito, la sublimación digital y la retórica ciberlibertaria que mistifica el poder emancipador de Internet. Mediante un trabajo empírico basado en 37 entrevistas, tres grupos focales y observaciones participantes, se analizan los imaginarios y las prácticas mediáticas del 15M. Nuestros resultados destacan tres tensiones híbridas entre: la fe en el poder democratizador de Internet y la praxis política; la acción complementaria en el espacio virtual y físico; y el uso simultáneo de redes corporativas y medios alternativos. Se concluye que los mitos utópicos sobre Internet son negociados con la realidad de formas complejas e inspiran la acción política y la innovación tecnológica.
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REIS. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2022
This article examines imaginaries regarding the Internet and their inuence on the forms of techn... more This article examines imaginaries regarding the Internet and their inuence on the forms of technological appropriation by social movements. It focuses on the concepts of myth, the digital sublime and cyber-libertarian rhetoric that mystify the emancipatory power of the Internet. Through an empirical study based on 37 interviews, three focus groups and participant observations, the imaginaries and media practices of the Spanish 15M movement are analysed. Our results reveal three hybrid tensions between: faith in the democratizing power of the Internet and political praxis; complementary actions in virtual and physical space; and the simultaneous use of corporate networks and alternative media. We conclude that utopian myths about the Internet are negotiated with reality in complex ways and inspire political action and technological innovation.
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MIA Media Industry Australia, 2022
This study explores how Chinese riders game the algorithm-mediated governing system of food deliv... more This study explores how Chinese riders game the algorithm-mediated governing system of food delivery service platforms and how they mobilize WeChat to build solidarity networks to assist each other and better cope with the platform economy. We rely on 12 interviews with Chinese riders from 4 platforms (Meituan, Eleme, SF Express and Flash EX) in 5 cities, and draw on a 4-month online observation of 7 private WeChat groups. The article provides a detailed account of the gamification ranking and competition techniques employed by delivery platforms to drive the riders to achieve efficiency and productivity gains. Then, it critically explores how Chinese riders adapt and react to the algorithmic systems that govern their work by setting up private WeChat groups and developing everyday practices of resilience and resistance. This study demonstrates that Chinese riders working for food delivery platforms incessantly create a complex repertoire of tactics and develop hidden transcripts to resist the algorithmic control of digital platforms.
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ABSTRACT Este artículo aborda la experiencia del movimiento social #YoSoy132, a partir de la expl... more ABSTRACT Este artículo aborda la experiencia del movimiento social #YoSoy132, a partir de la exploración de su surgimiento en el contexto político, social y mediático mexicano y del análisis de sus características, demandas y paralelismos con los nuevos movimientos sociales globales. Además, el artículo problematiza el papel de los medios digitales –en particular de las redes sociales– dentro del movimiento, rompiendo con cinco narrativas dominantes en la literatura. Finalmente, se realiza un balance de los alcances y de las limitaciones de #YoSoy132.
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Abstract Studies on social movements and activism online have usually focused on 'pa... more Abstract Studies on social movements and activism online have usually focused on 'particular'portions of the internet, such as web sites (della Porta and Mosca, 2005; Stein, 2009; Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2004), mailing lists (Kavada, 2010; Wall, 2007), blogs ( ...
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Partiendo del asunto que los enfoques clásicos de los movimientos sociales han considerado los me... more Partiendo del asunto que los enfoques clásicos de los movimientos sociales han considerado los medios de comunicación como simples herramientas para alcanzar finalidades prefijadas, este artículo reseña una serie de nuevos enfoques desarrollados por comunicólogos y estudiosos de movimientos sociales, que pretenden ir más allá de una concepción instrumental de la comunicación en la acción colectiva. Estos nuevos enfoques, centrándose en la exploración de las ‘practicas relacionadas con los medios’ de los activistas, revelan la existencia de un complejo ecosistema comunicativo donde diferentes tecnologías se entrelazan continuamente y donde adquieren cada vez más importancia las relaciones, las negociaciones y los conflictos entre viejos y nuevos medios de la comunicación.
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Digital television in Europe, 2008
... Gulp SAT2000 Radiouno Radiodue Radiotre FDAuditorium Isoradio Rete A All Music Repubblica TV ... more ... Gulp SAT2000 Radiouno Radiodue Radiotre FDAuditorium Isoradio Rete A All Music Repubblica TV France 24 Second TV Capital Deejay M2o Source ... Jazeera English, Cnn International e Deutsche Welle, MTV 2, MTV Dance, MTV Music, VH1 e VH1 Classic, MU TV, Chelsea ...
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Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 2021
Short videos and short-video-based social media (SVB) platforms have provided Chinese consumers w... more Short videos and short-video-based social media (SVB) platforms have provided Chinese consumers with a new way to protest against businesses. However, they have received scant attention from scholars. This study aims to fill this gap in two ways. Firstly, it will contextualize this phenomenon within the literature on consumer activism, foregrounding three key phases in the evolution of online consumer activism in China. Secondly, it will analyze two case studies to provide a vivid picture of consumer video activism (CVA), disentangling its hybrid dynamics in the complex interaction between consumers, businesses, We-media, mainstream media and the public.
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Television & New Media, 2019
This article introduces the tenets of a theory of datafication of and in the Souths. It calls for... more This article introduces the tenets of a theory of datafication of and in the Souths. It calls for a de-Westernization of critical data studies, in view of promoting a reparation to the cognitive injustice that fails to recognize non-mainstream ways of knowing the world through data. It situates the "Big Data from the South" research agenda as an epistemological, ontological, and ethical program and outlines five conceptual operations to shape this agenda. First, it suggests moving past the "universalism" associated with our interpretations of datafication. Second, it advocates understanding the South as a composite and plural entity, beyond the geographical connotation (i.e., "global South"). Third, it postulates a critical engagement with the decolonial approach. Fourth, it argues for the need to bring agency to the core of our analyses. Finally, it suggests embracing the imaginaries of datafication emerging from the Souths, foregrounding empowering ways of thinking data from the margins.
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The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses o... more The concept of technopolitics has been increasingly employed to interpret the contemporary uses of communication technologies by social movements and civil society organizations. This chapter tackles the historical and theoretical roots of the notion, by critically examining contributions from different disciplines, regions and strands of literature. First, the chapter outlines the use of technopolitics within technology transfer and scientific innovation, and charts its adoption in studies regarding media and the political sphere. Then, it explores its rediscovery and application at the intersection between the appropriations of Spanish activists and academics, and scrutinizes its extension to Latin America. Next, it examines five key potentialities of the concept, as well as its connections with other recent theorizations, especially derived from Anglo-Saxon scholarship. The chapter concludes by proposing further dialogue between Northern and Southern research communities, as a way to generate more nuanced understandings of everyday activist practices, action research, and socio-political change.
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… Polices in the Information Society Promotion …, 2012
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the emergent Italian Web TV ecosystem. We be... more The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the emergent Italian Web TV ecosystem. We begin by sketching a summary of the Italian media scenario, focusing on three related aspects: the Rai-Mediaset duopoly, the Berlusconi anomaly and digital evolution of the TV ...
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Digital Communication Polices in the Information Society Promotion Stage, May 18, 2012
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ESSACHESSJournal for …, 2011
Résumé: Le processus de numérisation et de diffusion de l'information par internet montre un... more Résumé: Le processus de numérisation et de diffusion de l'information par internet montre un paysage médiatique en pleine mutation radicale. Les canaux de communication par le web se multiplient ainsi que les dispositifs d'accès, tandis que l'expertise nécessaire pour ...
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Comunicación y Sociedad, Nueva época, núm. 23, enero-junio, 2015, pp. 261-265. issn 0188-252x, 2015
Reseña del libro: Marí Sáez, V. (2011). Comunicar para transformar, transformar para comunicar.... more Reseña del libro: Marí Sáez, V. (2011). Comunicar para transformar, transformar para comunicar. Tecnologías de la información desde una perspectiva de cambio social. Madrid, España: Editorial Popular, 235 pp.
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This is a review of the following book: Pui-Lam Law, ed., New Connectivities in China: Virtual, A... more This is a review of the following book: Pui-Lam Law, ed., New Connectivities in China: Virtual, Actual and Local Interactions (New York: Springer, 2012), 234 pp., US$139
Please cite as: Treré, E. (2013). The Digital Face of Contemporary China [Review of the book New Connectivities in China: Virtual, Actual and Local Interactions, by Pui-Lam Law (ed.)]. Transfers, 3(3), 146-148.
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Memorias de la Séptima Semana Internacional de la Comunicación, Uniminuto, Bogotá, Colombia, 2013
El objetivo de este breve ensayo es proporcionar una serie de reflexiones cristalizadas en un ‘de... more El objetivo de este breve ensayo es proporcionar una serie de reflexiones cristalizadas en un ‘decálogo crítico’, que surge de la literatura que trata la relación entre los movimientos sociales y las tecnologías de la comunicación, y desde el trabajo empírico que he realizado
los últimos cinco años con movimientos sociales y prácticas comunicativas en Italia y en México, que sirvan para cuestionar y problematizar las visiones simplistas y tecnodeterministas
sobre movimientos y medios; y, al mismo tiempo, a delinear unas rutas prometedoras en futuros estudios acerca de estos fenómenos. Precisamente, el concepto de mediación, en la perspectiva de Jesús Martín-Barbero, resulta fundamental para poder delinear estas futuras rutas prometedoras.
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Herrera-Aguilar, M. (ed.), La comunicación como objeto de estudio. Sociedad y culturas contemporáneas. , Feb 2014
El presente artículo realiza una sistematización de las corrientes críticas y escépticas acer... more El presente artículo realiza una sistematización de las corrientes críticas y escépticas acerca del estudio de las redes digitales y de la Web 2.0. En primer lugar, se abordan las críticas relacionadas con el contenido de las plataformas digitales y los autores que han subrayado cómo éstas a menudo son espacios de desinformación y superficialidad, donde triunfan la “jibarización” y el amateurismo. En segundo lugar, el artículo aborda enfoques de autores que critican la economía política de las redes, evidenciando cómo estas tecnologías representan espacios de explotación, vigilancia y control de los llamados prosumidores, jugando un papel fundamental en la creación de un nuevo sector de la sociedad denominado cognitariado. A través de esta sistematización, el artículo pretende contribuir a la formación de una opinión que no caiga en las ingenuidades de los optimismos y determinismos tecnológicos, dejar detrás los relatos anecdóticos sobre las oportunidades de las redes digitales y facilitar la creación de visiones críticas respecto a la fiebre por la novedad y la democratización de las plataformas 2.0 que siguen dominando las reflexiones sobre la comunicación digital.
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ccnr.infotech.monash.edu
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Este pequeño ensayo pretende reflexionar críticamente sobre las trasformaciones sociales debidas ... more Este pequeño ensayo pretende reflexionar críticamente sobre las trasformaciones sociales debidas a los medios digitales que están cambiando profundamente nuestras sociedades. Este trabajo está dividido en dos partes. En la primera parte realizo un sucinto recorrido por la historia de la Red, haciendo un especial énfasis en la paralela evolución del activismo digital. En la segunda parte, proporcionaré algunas reflexiones acerca de la evolución de la Red y de los paralelos cambios experimentados en el entorno del activismo, tanto desde el punto de vista conceptual como metodológico.
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IAMCR 2011-Istanbul, Jan 1, 2011
Abstract Studies on social movements and activism online have usually focused on 'pa... more Abstract Studies on social movements and activism online have usually focused on 'particular'portions of the internet, such as web sites (della Porta and Mosca, 2005; Stein, 2009; Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2004), mailing lists (Kavada, 2010; Wall, 2007), blogs ( ...
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Inaugural blog essay which lays the conceptual foundations of the newly formed 'Big Data from the... more Inaugural blog essay which lays the conceptual foundations of the newly formed 'Big Data from the South' research network, and aims at generating a vibrant conversation, and a new research agenda around these issues
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My contribution to the RE.FRAMING ACTIVISM Blog
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New Media & Society, Jan 1, 2012
Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers wh... more Current internet research has been influenced by application developers and computer engineers who see the development of the Web as being divided into three different stages: Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. This article will argue that this understanding – although important when analysing the political economy of the Web – can have serious limitations when applied to everyday contexts and the lived experience of technologies. Drawing from the context of the Italian student movement, we show that the division between Web 1.0, Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 is often deconstructed by activists’ media practices. Therefore, we highlight the importance of developing an approach that – by focusing on practice – draws attention to the interplay between Web platforms rather than their transition. This approach, we believe, is essential to the understanding of the complex relationship between Web developments, human negotiations and everyday social contexts.
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Location: Cartagena, Colombia Date and Time: July 15, 2017, 10am-6pm Conference Description: Crit... more Location: Cartagena, Colombia Date and Time: July 15, 2017, 10am-6pm Conference Description: Critical scholarship has exposed how big data brings along new and opaque regimes of population management, control, and discrimination. Building on this scholarship, this pre-conference engages in a dialogue with traditions that critique the dominance of Western approaches to datacation that do not recognize the diversity of the Global South. Moving from datacation to data activism, this event will examine the diverse ways through which citizens and the organized civil society in the Global South engage in bottom-up data practices for social change as well as resistance to " dark " uses of big data that increase oppression and inequality. Call for Proposal: We accept abstract in both English and Spanish. Send your 300 – 500 word abstract to: iamcr2017@data-activism.net. Abstracts must be received by 23:59 GMT on 1 March. Datacation has dramatically altered the way we understand the world around us. The phenomenon of " Big Data " , tinted with the narratives of positivism and modernization, has been widely praised for its revolutionary possibilities especially in the elds of politics and citizen participation. But big data is not without risks and threats, as some critical voices within media studies and neighbouring disciplines remind us. These argue that big data is not merely a technological issue or a ywheel of knowledge and change, but a 'mythology' that we ought to interrogate and critically engage with (boyd & Crawford, 2012; Couldry & Powell, 2014; Mosco, 2014; Tufekci, 2014). " Critical data studies " increasingly question the potential inequality and discrimination as well as exclusion harboured by the mechanisms of big data and the associated policies (Gangadharan, 2012; Dalton, Taylor, & Thatcher, 2016). Yet, most of these analyses emerged in a Western, post-industrial context and narrative, often ignoring the specicities of datacation " from the South ". The consequences of these new regimes of data inequality and discrimination, however, are particularly acute in the Global South, where they intersect with other practices of social and political oppression, and where fewer tools are available to citizens to ght back the novel incarnations of data power promoted and imposed by institutions, governments, and corporations alike. We propose to approach " big data
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This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communica... more This article presents findings from an empirical study of repertoires of contention and communication engaged during anti-austerity protests by the Indignados in Spain, the precarious generation in Italy, and the Aganaktismenoi in Greece. Drawing on 60 semi-structured interviews with activists and independent media producers involved in the 2011 wave of contention, we bring together social movement and communications theoretical frameworks to present a comparative critical analysis of digital protest media imaginaries. After examining the different socio-political and protest media contexts of the three countries translocally, our critical analysis emphasizes the emergence of three different imaginaries: in Spain the digital protest media imaginary was technopolitical, grounded in the politics and political economies of communication technologies emerging from the free culture movement; in Italy this imaginary was techno-fragmented, lacking cohesion, and failed to bring together old and new protest media logics; and finally in Greece it was techno-pragmatic, envisioned according to practical objectives that reflected the diverse politics and desires of media makers rather than the strictly technological or political affordances of the digital media forms and platforms. This research reveals how pivotal the temporal and geographical dimensions are when analyzed using theoretical perspectives from both communications and social movement research; moreover it emphasizes the importance of studying translocal digital protest media imaginaries as they shape movement repertoires of contention and communication; both elements are crucial to better understanding the challenges, limitations, successes and opportunities for digital protest media.
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Citizen media and practice: currents, connections, challenges, 2019
This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practic... more This chapter explores the past, assesses the present and delineates the future of a media practice approach to citizen media. The first section provides an extensive overview of the different currents in research on media practices, identifying the antecedents of the media practice approach in several theoretical traditions and highlighting possible points of convergence between them. Hence, we ground the roots of the practice approach in Latin American communication and media studies, we scrutinize Couldry's conceptualization in connection to theories of practices within the social sciences, and we examine audience research, media anthropology, social movement studies, citizen and alternative media, and Communication for Development and Social Change. The second section takes stock of the current 'state of the art' of practice-focused research on citizen and activist media and develops a critical assessment of how the concept of media practices has been used in recent literature, identifying key strengths and shortcomings. In this section, we also discuss the integration of media practices with other concepts, such as mediation, mediatization, media ecologies, media archeology, media imaginaries, and the public sphere. The third section delineates future directions for research on citizen media and practice, reflecting on some of the challenges facing this growing interdisciplinary field. Here, we illustrate how the media practice approach provides a powerful framework for researching the pressing challenges posed by mediatization and datafication. Further, we highlight the need for deeper theoretical engagement, underline the necessity of dialogue between different traditions, and point out some unresolved issues and limitations. The chapter concludes with an outline of the contributions to this edited collection.
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