Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social media, public space, and emerging logics of aggregation

[Tema 3: La percepción que tienen en otros países de las protestas que se producen en España.]

American Ethnologist Volume 39, Issue 2, pages 259–279, May 2012

ABSTRACT

This article explores the links between social media and public space within the #Occupy Everywhere movements. Whereas listservs and websites helped give rise to a widespread logic of networking within the movements for global justice of the 1990s–2000s, I argue that social media have contributed to an emerging logic of aggregation in the more recent #Occupy movements—one that involves the assembling of masses of individuals from diverse backgrounds within physical spaces. However, the recent shift toward more decentralized forms of organizing and networking may help to ensure the sustainability of the #Occupy movements in a posteviction phase. [social movements, globalization, political protest, public space, social media, new technologies, inequality]