‘What tools should we use?’: Politicized youth’s perspectives on digital activism in the Basque Country

Abstract

As has occurred with all political activism, contentious counter-hegemonic activism has found a new space for political action on the internet. The massive expansion of digital space in recent years has increased the socializing importance of the field of communications, especially among young people. However, it is not known to what extent the use of internet-based tools has spread in the contemporary protest repertoires of young Basque activists. Based on qualitative research carried out with young pro-independence nationalist activists in the Basque Country in the period following the end of ETA’s armed activity, the main objective of this article is to analyse the scope and limits of digital activism from the point of view of these new political subjects. The principal finding is that activists construct hybrid communication systems, in which physical and virtual spaces are combined, and where their inheritance of a community-based counter-hegemonic political activism and experimentation with new forms have come together.