The emergence of network-movements since 2011 has opened the debate around the way in which social media and networked practices make possible innovative forms of collective identity. We briefly review the literature on social movements and 'collective identity', and show the tension between different positions stressing either organization or culture, the personal or the collective, aggregative or networking logics. We argue that the 15M (indignados) network-movement in Spain demands conceptual and methodological innovations. Its rapid emergence, endurance, diversity, multifaceted development and adaptive capacity, posit numerous theoretical and methodological challenges. We show how the use of structural and dynamic analysis of interaction networks (in combination with qualitative data) is a valuable tool to track the shape and change of what we term the 'systemic dimension' of collective identities in network-movements. In particular, we introduce a novel method for synchrony detection in Facebook activity to identify the distributed, yet integrated, coordinated activity behind collective identities. Applying this analytical strategy to the 15M movement, we show how it displays a specific form of systemic collective identity we call 'multitudinous identity', characterized by social transversality and internal heterogeneity, as well as a transient and distributed leadership driven by action initiatives. Our approach attends to the role of distributed interaction and transient leadership at a mesoscale level of organizational dynamics, which may contribute to contemporary discussions of collective identity in network-movements.
Abstract. With the irruption of ICTs and the crisis of political representation, many online platforms have been developed with the aim of improving participatory democratic processes. However, regarding platforms for online petitioning, previous research has not found examples of how to effectively introduce discussions, a crucial feature to promote deliberation. In this study we focus on the case of Decidim Barcelona, the online participatory-democracy platform launched by the City Council of Barcelona in which proposals can be discussed with an interface that combines threaded discussions and comment alignment with the proposal. This innovative approach allows to examine whether neutral, positive or negative comments are more likely to generate discussion cascades. The results reveal that, with this interface, comments marked as negatively aligned with the proposal were more likely to engage users in online discussions and, therefore, helped to promote deliberative decision making.
INTRODUCCIÓN: DECIDIM Y EL CICLO TECNOPOLÍTICO 15MEn 2011, año clave de una profunda crisis económica y política en España, dos lemas resonaron con fuerza en las calles y en las redes. El primero, crítico, denunciaba que los y las representantes políticos «no nos representan»; el segundo, utópico, apuntaba al deseo multitudinario de una «democracia real, ¡ya!». Estos lemas del denominado Movimiento 15M abrieron un ciclo político que ha situado en el centro del debate público la cuestión de la relación entre representación y democracia, y que ha encontrado en el uso intensivo y extensivo de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación una vía para ir más allá de la primera a fin de reconstruir la segunda. Entre 2013 y 2015 este ciclo favoreció el surgimiento de nuevos partidos como Podemos y numerosas candidaturas municipalistas (de Barcelona en Comú a Ahora Madrid), iniciativas que han reformulado la política de partidos desde lógicas más participativas, abiertas y en red. Tras el ascenso de algunas de estas iniciativas a los gobiernos de diferentes ciudades, en 2015 y 2016, Madrid y Barcelona fueron pioneras en el desarrollo de plataformas digitales de democracia participativa que han abierto un nuevo periodo de innovación democrática. Decide Madrid y Decidim Barcelona (inicialmente basada en Cónsul, la aplicación base de Decide Madrid) son la punta de lanza de estas innovaciones. Con ellas, mu-
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