The 15-M movement in the media and in networks: an analysis of communication strategies

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of the uses of the Internet by activists of the 15-M movement. We pay attention to two processes: the use of the Internet I) as a vehicle of communication with their potential audiences and II) as a technology that allows to circulate an alternative framework. Therefore we analyzed also the role played by the newspapers during the regional and municipal elections of 2011 when the movement burst onto the Spanish public life. Facing the frameworks developed by the newspapers during this period, the activists reacted with a strategy to control the flow of information about what was happening in the streets of many cities in Spain. This strategy of communicative action revolves around the general framework of the 15-M and, thanks largely to the Internet, is focused on the need to develop forms of direct participation and the disintermediation of the relationships between activists and other citizens.