Mobile phones have gone from being a simple means of communication to a tool with multiple applications that have become an essential part of our professional and personal lives. As such, the advance and confluence of technology allows us to consider new perspectives through which we can understand the processes of change that are occurring in our interconnected society - other forms of interaction or focuses of interest in an environment in which it seems that everything has yet to be discovered. Mobile technologies have introduced a different dimension into social life amid a complex web of human relations in everything from politics and business to the closest and most intimate human … [Read more...] about The mobile society: A more mobilised society?
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Iberians of the Year 2011: Spain’s Indignados
From Tunis to Cairo and from Madrid to Manhattan, outrage has been the overwhelming theme of 2011. Outrage at ineffectual, unrepresentative political systems, outrage at coddled elites, outrage at the financial system and the perceived culprits for the economic turmoil that has spread around the world. The year of outrage began on the streets of Tunisia in January, spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East as Arab Spring revolutions unfolded across the region, and, by late spring, the wave of indignation hit Europe. In Madrid in May, the seed of a different style of revolution was planted as thousands of activists - mostly young, many unemployed - set up camp in the city … [Read more...] about Iberians of the Year 2011: Spain’s Indignados
How do you choose the Iberians of 2011?
Choosing a “person of the year” is rarely easy and when Iberosphere co-editor Andrew Eatwell and I set about deciding on the Iberians of 2011, the difficulties were all too clear. So many events unfold over the course of 12 months: political, economic, cultural, sporting and otherwise. Is a football player more worthy of attention than a politician? Is a writer more important than a banker? Obviously, that depends on what each achieved and how much importance you attach to football, politics, literature and banking. For us, each can be of huge significance to a nation’s state of mind, if not its everyday life. But there is a more general issue. What is it that we are gauging? From the start … [Read more...] about How do you choose the Iberians of 2011?
Spain’s ‘indignados’
[sharethis] Last May, as the campaign for Spain’s local elections got underway, it looked like business as usual. Neither of the two main political parties was managing to inspire voters with hope or ideas as the country’s jobless line grew and the economic crisis deepened. But on May 15, the Sunday before the elections, a group of well-organised, mainly young, activists gathered in Madrid and marched to the central square of Puerta del Sol. They set up a makeshift campsite, declared the Spanish political system unrepresentative and obsolete, and within days their support had snowballed across the country and the eyes of the world were on them. Six months on, los indignados, or the … [Read more...] about Spain’s ‘indignados’
Democracy 2.0 and the 15-M movement
The 15-M movement, organized by ¡Democracia Real Ya!, has had an important impact on Spanish public opinion and has spread to other countries. It is undeniable that new communications channels on the internet have contributed to the expansion of its ideals, but they have not been the only methods by which the movement has been fuelled and motivated. The Cocktail Analysis, a consultancy, recently published a study called Movilización y redes sociales (Mobilization and social networks) looking at how Spanish web users evaluate the 15-M movement. Contrary to what many may think, most people first became aware of 15-M on the television (51.9 percent versus 29.6 percent who found out first on … [Read more...] about Democracy 2.0 and the 15-M movement
What will follow the Spanish Spring?
“They have gathered 30,000 signatures but have forgotten what they are for.” Besides being purely mischievous, there is also a shade of truth behind this headline from satirical website El Mundo Today. Over the last month, Spain has seen a swelling of civic outrage at its dysfunctional political system, expressed through the 15-M, or Democracia Real Ya, protest movement, whose members have occupied squares around the country. Those sleeping-bag protests are now ending and the most symbolic one of all, that in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, has voted to pack up and move on. Now, still bristling with outrage, 15-M is organising neighbourhood assemblies and one-off demonstrations, such as … [Read more...] about What will follow the Spanish Spring?
How police brutality helped Spain’s 15-M protests
In recent days, music fans and political activists in Spain have been remembering Gil Scott-Heron, the singer-songwriter who died last Friday. The ongoing sit-ins and protests that started across Spain in the lead-up to May’s local elections have seen inevitable links being drawn between Scott-Heron’s anthem The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and the 15-M/Democracia Real Ya movement. But the day after Scott-Heron’s death, when the TV showed images of Catalonia’s mossos d’esquadra local police force brutally charging into a crowd of unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in Barcelona, it seemed more fitting to think of another seventies cultural touchstone: Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork … [Read more...] about How police brutality helped Spain’s 15-M protests