Protesting on Twitter: Citizenship and empowerment from public education

Abstract

La utilización de las redes sociales con fines reivindicativos ha sido un elemento esencial en las recientes protestas globales contra las medidas económicas de privatización de los servicios públicos. Las redes sociales están cambiando la comunicación política, la movilización y la organización de las protestas colectivas. Tomando en cuenta la relación entre las protestas colectivas y las nuevas formas de comunicación en red, el objetivo del artículo es analizar las nuevas formas de empoderamiento ciudadano desde las protestas colectivas por la defensa de la educación pública en España. En los últimos cinco años, en el contexto español, el movimiento «Marea Verde» ha generado protestas en Twitter que han dado lugar a nuevas formas de empoderamiento de la ciudadanía. En este artículo han sido analizadas tres cuentas de Twitter con gran actividad y protagonismo, por el número de seguidores y tweets, de las redes sociales de la «Marea Verde». Han emergido cuatro categorías de análisis que aglutinan y caracterizan las demandas de los movimientos sociales a través de las redes sociales. Dos de las categorías se han producido como medio de rechazo a la privatización de la educación y a las pruebas de evaluación estandarizadas de la nueva reforma educativa española. Las otras dos categorías reclaman la defensa de la escuela pública y el logro de un pacto educativo entre las fuerzas políticas y la comunidad educativaThe use of social networks for protest purposes has been an essential element in recent global protests against the economic measures of privatization of public services. Social networks are changing political communication, mobilization and organization of collective protests. Taking into account the relationship between collective protests and new forms of network communication, the aim of this article is to analyze the new forms of citizenship empowerment from the collective protests in defense of public education in Spain. In the last five years the movement “Marea Verde” has generated protests on twitter that have generated new forms of empowerment of citizenship in the Spanish context. In this article we have analyzed three accounts of twitter with great activity and prominence, by the numbers of followers and tweets, of the social networks by “Marea Verde”. In this article four categories of analysis have emerged that agglutinate and characterize the demands of collective protests through social networks. Two of the categories have been generated to reject the privatization of education and the standardized tests of the new educational reform act in the Spanish context. The other two categories claim for public education and an educational consensus between the political forces and the educational communit

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