Content uploaded by Rodrigo Gómez García
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Rodrigo Gómez García on Aug 27, 2014
Content may be subject to copyright.
http://con.sagepub.com/
Technologies
Journal of Research into New Media
Convergence: The International
http://con.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/07/18/1354856514541744
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1354856514541744
published online 20 July 2014Convergence
Rodrigo Gómez García and Emiliano Treré
The #YoSoy132 movement and the struggle for media democratization in Mexico
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:Technologies
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New MediaAdditional services and information for
http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/alertsEmail Alerts:
http://con.sagepub.com/subscriptionsSubscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:
What is This?
- Jul 20, 2014OnlineFirst Version of Record >>
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Article
The #YoSoy132 movement
and the struggle for media
democratization in Mexico
Rodrigo Go
´
mez Garcı
´
a
Universidad Auto
´
noma Metropolitana-Cuajimalpa, Mexico
Emiliano Trere
´
Autonomous University of Quere
´
taro, Mexico
Abstract
In this article, we analyze through a political economy of communication lens the historical and
political contexts in which the #YoSoy132 movement emerged, the concentration of Mexican
media system and the possibilities offered by s ocial media to young people, situating the issue of
media democratization at the centre of the #YoSoy132 struggle. Drawing on two group and four
individual interviews, we also focus on the dimension of students’ communication practices in
order to provide a more nuanced evaluation of the role played by d igital media inside the
movement. By blending a political economy a nalysis with an explor ation of media practi ces, we
offer an in-depth understanding of how communication technologies were used and appro-
priated in order to democratize mainstream media, foster p luralism and trigger important pro-
cesses related to political cultur e withi n the Mexica n context. W e conclud e by assessin g the
achievements as well as the challenges of #YoSoy132.
Keywords
Media democratization, media practices, Mexican media, political economy of communication,
social media, social movements, #YoSoy132
Combining media practices with a political economy perspective:
Framework, methods and overview
The social movement #YoSoy132 emerged as a strong social actor in 2012 during the Mexican
presidential electoral campaign. Its relevance within the Mexican context has still to be properly
assessed, but we can affirm that it has represented one of the most important movements of the
Corresponding author:
Emiliano Trere
´
, Autonomous University of Quere
´
taro, Centro Universitario, Cerro de las Campanas S/N, 76010 Santiago
de Quere
´
taro, Quere
´
taro, Mexico.
Email: etrere@gmail.com
Convergence: The International
Journal of Research into
New Media Technologies
1–15
ª The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1354856514541744
con.sagepub.com
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
last decades, at least in Latin America, for various reasons: It was able to profoundly impact the
electoral process in a very short space of time; it demonstrated that Mexican young people were
not passive actors far from politics but were capable of producing their own visions for
democracy and pluralism; and it was able to impose discussion on media concentration and
democratization within the institutions’ agendas and the public sphere.
In the last 10 years, we have witnessed a considerable proliferation of different approaches to
digital activism, which has tried to make sense of the connections between new communication
technologies and the uprising of mass mobilizations (Bennett and Segerberg, 2013; Cando´n
Mena, 2013; Castells, 2012; Earl and Kimport, 2011; Gerbaudo, 2012; Hands, 2011; Lievrouw,
2011; Juris, 2012). This article aims to contribute to this growing body of literature by applying
an innovative approach (a combination of critical political economy of communication and an
analysis of media practices) to an original case study (the understudied #YoSoy132 movement
and its context). In order to offer a comprehensive view on the communication practices of
the student movement and better understand its relevance within Mexican political, economic
and sociocultural dimensions, we combine a critical political economy of communication
analysis (Hesmondhalgh, 2013) of the Mexican media system with a bottom-up exploration of
#YoSoy132’s media practices. The benefits of this combination have recently been pointed out
in the literature (Barassi and Trere´, 2012; Couldry, 2012). On the one hand, political economy
analysis investigates the macrodimension of social power relations and situates the emergence
of this movement within broader political, economic and sociocultural changes addressing the
processes of structuration, commodification and spatialization (Mosco, 2009). On the other
hand, an approach that looks at the movements’ media practices (Mattoni, 2012; McCurdy,
2011; Trere´, 2012; Uldam and Askanius, 2013) is helpful to further articulate the role played
by communication technologies from the points of view of the social actors involved in the
protest. In order to gain an understanding of these media practices, two group interviews were
carried out with activists from #YoSoy132 in Mexico City and in Guadalajara.
Given the pivotal importance of Mexico City in the development of the #YoSoy132 movement
(and, in general, in some of the most important Mexican uprisings), we decided to carry out in the
capital our first group interview that lasted approximately 3 h. We interviewed nine students,
most of them from the ‘Media Democratization Taskforce’, and they included key informants,
such as activists responsible for the management of social media platforms. The second group
interview was carried out with seven #YoSoy132 activists from Guadalajara. We also included in
the interviewee sample managers of social media platforms and took into account alternative
media creators who played an important role in the Guadalajara section of the movement. This
second group interview lasted 3.5 h. We used the group interviews in order to see the move-
ment’s dynamics ‘in action’ as in the students’ assemblies and meetings. We transcribed the
interviews and thematically analysed them (Flick, 2009). In order to deepen the understanding of
important issues regarding the use of communication technologies that emerged from the
interviews, we carried out individual interviews with three activists from Mexico City and one
from Guadalajara. Moreover, the aim of the research and of the interviews in particular was to
foster in activists a reflection on their own social practices in order to assess the pros and cons of
their actions and improve the effectiveness of their activities in the future.
In the first section of this article, we analyse the Mexican political and media context where
the movement arose; in the second section, we describe the emergence of the movement as a
powerful social actor and agent in the context of the Mexican presidential elections; in the third
section, we explore some of the ways through which #YoSoy132’s activists used and appropriated
2 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
2
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
communication technologies, in particular social media. In the final section, we assess the
achievements as well as the challenges of this Mexican student movement.
The context: Exploring the Mexican media and political system
The social movement #YoSoy132 emerged in the Mexican political arena as a breath of fresh air
in the context of the 2012 presidential electoral campaign and, as we argue in this article, as a
powerful social agent that enriched the political debate, not just during the presidential campaign
but in the wider political culture and democracy trajectories of Mexico. But before we evaluate
#YoSoy132 as a social agent and protest movement, it is important to explore briefly the
sociocultural, economic and political context in which it emerged.
First of all, it is important to point out that #YoSoy132, even though it can be considered a
national movement, emerged in the heart of the political centre of Mexico, Mexico City (Federal
District – DF), where all the political powers of the nation are established; but, at the same time
since the country’s institutional democratic transition began in the late 1990s, it is one of the most
organized cities in terms of political cultures, with significant presence and the work of many
diverse non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the most plural media system in Mexico (in
the context of a highly concentrated television (TV) system). Moreover, Mexico City is the base
of the three federal public universities – that are very active in political terms – and all the major
private universities in the country have a campus in the city. Furthermore, it has an influential
critical mass of intellectuals representing a wide range of ideologies. In terms of the representa-
tion of political parties – as the citizens of the DF have been able to elect their representatives
(Government Chief, mayors, assembly members and delegates) since 1997 – the main left party
has won all the local elections. The actual ruling party at the federal level, the Institutional Rev-
olutionary Party (PRI), an old hegemonic party,
1
has since then been a political minority.
That is the wider context in which the #YoSoy132 emerged, and now the particular context
for that emergence has to be established too. The 2012 presidential electoral campaign was
underway, and until then the surveys
2
and general opinion of the electoral process indicated that
Enrique Pen
˜
a Nieto, the PRI candidate, was the clear favourite – leading with at least 20% points.
Nevertheless, some sectors of the left and political analysts considered that those surveys did not
reflect the real state of the electorate.
We have to recall that in the last presidential campaign in 2006 the former Government Chief
(Jefe de Gobierno) of Mexico City, Andre´s Manuel Lo´pez Obrador, the candidate of a coalition of
the left-wing parties lost the election with less than 1% point against the candidate of the conser-
vative National Action Party (PAN) Felipe Caldero´n.
3
Another issue to consider was that Obrador
started the 2006 campaign with a 10% point advantage and he lost that advantage, little by little.
Because of that and other reasons,
4
those elections were some of the most controversial in Mexican
history. With that context and Obrador running for the second time, many centre and left-wing
political sectors were sceptical about taking Pen
˜
a Nieto’s 20-point advantage for granted. The
other candidate, who was running with a chance for the presidency was Josefina Vazquez Mota
of the PAN, the ruling government party from 2001 to 2012.
Another issue that was on the table relates to the construction of Pen
˜
a Nieto’s image as a
leader. He not only had enjoyed a lot of support from several local and national media during his
administration as governor of the State of Mexico (2007–2012) but was also presented in a
favourable light – especially by the TV network with the majority audience share, the influential
Televisa, that repeatedly gave him much air time and positive coverage during his 6-year
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
3
3
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
mandate. There was even journalistic evidence, presented by the British newspaper The Guard-
ian that claimed that Televisa implemented a covert strategy to present Pen
˜
a Nieto in their var-
ious TV news programs in a positive way and, at the same time, employed a more overt strategy
against Obrador (Tuckman, 2012).
Although this issue was minimized by the mainstream media, especially TV, during the
campaign, it nevertheless helps us establish an overview of the Mexican communication system
and its concerns, especially in relation to that most influential of media, TV. In Mexico, the
majority of the population gets its political information via TV – 76%, according to the national
survey of political culture in Mexico (INEGI-SEGOB, 2012: 2). This industry is highly concen-
trated, dominated by two companies that command 99% of the audience share and advertising
market: Televisa (69%)andTVAzteca(30%)(HuertaandGo´mez, 2013). Furthermore, it should
be noted that public service broadcasting has a very marginal market share and is not universally
accessible across the country.
5
The outcomes of this high TV market concentration are, first, a
lack of pluralism in most of the TV news programmes and, second, enormous symbolic power in
the hands of Televisa and TV Azteca over and above that of political parties and governments.
These issues have been characterized by scholars as one of the failures of Mexican democracy
(Sa´nchez Ruiz, 2004; Trejo, 2004).
However, alongside this analogue form of media consumption, the young urban middle classes –
especially university students – are increasingly using digital media and particularly social
media. In 2012, according to social media monitoring company Socialbakers, Mexico had 34
million Facebook accounts, 12 million Twitter accounts and 10 million YouTube users, whilst
Internet users in the country numbered 45.1 million.
6
But in terms of Internet connections to
domestic dwellings, the number actually decreased, with only 3.5 out of every 10 households
having such a connection and a computer (Go´mez et al., 2011). However, interestingly, 43% of
Internet users are between 12 and 24 years old. Finally, the average amount of time users spend
on the Internet is, according to Asociacio´n Mexicana de Internet (AMIPCI), just over 5 h/day
(AMIPCI, 2013). Based on these data, we conclude that the increase in media consumption in
the last 2 years has to be related to smartphones and bandwidth; nevertheless, Mexico has just
10.7 million subscribers in that age group (Sigler, 2013). However, it is important to examine
these data because these devices are the most effective for mobile and multi-stakeholder
communication.
This overview of media consumption and the social communication system of Mexico allows
us to argue that the majority of the Mexican population are still in the ‘analogue’ sphere of
broadcast media, whilst at the same time a very active and influential minority is active in the
digital sphere. Therefore, we have to think of Mexico in terms of two overlapping public spheres
that interact in complex ways and reflect the inequalities evident in the country. Against this
wider context, we will now address the emergence of the #YoSoy132 movement.
The emergence of the #YoSoy132 movement
The movement emerged after the PRI candidate, Enrique Pen
˜
a Nieto, visited the private University
Iberoamericana in Mexico City on 11 May 2012, where students confronted him and contested his
record as governor of Mexico State. However, the event was given scant attention by the media,
and the protesting students were dismissed by the PRI as impostors from rival parties. Thus, the
mainstream media and PRI leaders constructed them as a counter-public (Coleman and Ross,
2010). In response, 131 of the students created a YouTube video declaring themselves as genuine
4 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
4
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
students who were against mainstream media and the PRI that dismissed them (see http://
www.youtube.com/watch? v¼P7XbocXsFkI). The video spread virally through social media plat-
forms (mainly Facebook and Twitter) to the major cities of the country as well as abroad where
many Mexican students live (Reguillo, 2012). People started to support these students by saying,
‘I’m one more of you’, ‘I’m 132’; therefore everybody who joined the social media protest was
symbolically number 132 and the name #YoSoy132 stuck. First, it became a trending topic on
Twitter, but then it became a powerful banner and name to one of the most powerful student move-
ments around the country. In addition, whilst the movement has to be thought of as a national one,
it has also been able to build transnational links with Mexican students abroad and gain the support
of other international collectives, thanks to the possibilities offered by the process of spatialization
(see http://yoSoy132internacional.wikispaces.com/).
It is important to note that the protest began in a private university, because until then private
universities were considered, generally speaking, both ‘uncritical’ and ‘allied to mainstream
media’ as a condition of their class alignment. The PRI and Televisa tried to persuade the
protesting students that neither organization was as undemocratic as the students claimed,
arguing that students from the public universities had taken control of the #YoSoy132 movement
by clearly supporting Lo´pez Obrador (this interview is an example: http://www.youtube.com/
watch? v¼d9ldm2akQR4). In other words, if the protest had originated in a public university,
mainstream media and the ruling political party might not have dedicated so much coverage and
attention to it because public Mexican universities have been stereotyped as ‘leftist radicals’.
When media is the message: Building new forms of communicative
citizenship
In these circumstances, significant numbers of university students begantoidentifywiththe
#YoSoy132 movement and started to address the lack of plurality in the dominant TV media as
the big issue, organizing via inter-university assemblies which demanded the democratization of
the Mexican media system in order to have real democratic and open elections (Sosa, 2012).
According to the students, Mexico’s TV coverage of the presidential election campaign was
unfairly promoting the former ruling party and its candidate. Thus, from the outset, they chal-
lenged the TV duopoly, targeting especially Televisa and the PRI candidate. Three weeks
after the 131 first came together, #YoSoy132 launched a YouTube video with their manifesto
(see http://www.youtube.com/watch? v¼igxPudJF6nU). They stated that (our translation from
Spanish): ‘One of the necessary conditions for correcting the current Mexican situation is the
empowering of the citizen through information, because this allows better political, economical
and social decisions to be taken’. They went on to state, ‘For #YoSoy132 the right to commu-
nication and the right to freedom of expression are the most important demands’. In particular,
the movement ‘wants the democratization of the mass media, in order to guarantee transparent
information, plural and impartial, to foster critical consciousness and thought’ and ‘requires that
access to the Internet is a constitutional right’.
It is important to recognize that the movement represented a powerful exercising of political
communication (Wolton, 1998) by sharing, confronting and debating their ideas among het-
erogeneous groups. #YoSoy132 has posed a challenge in terms of generating interaction between
the different political cultures and cultural practices of students in private and public universities
in order to reach an understanding, consensus and initiate effective actions to communicate their
demands. The effectiveness of #YoSoy132 in political terms is related to the political cultures of
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
5
5
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
the different universities that constituted the movement. These political cultures interacted with
each other and generated interesting organizational structures, adopting the advantages and
experience of many collectives that had developed expertise as activists – this kind of grass-roots
political culture has circulated widely in Mexico since the emergence of the Zapatista movement
(Zapatista Army of National Liberation) in 1994–butatthesametimetheycommunicatedwith
many who had no political or activist experience. These political cultures provided fertile ground
in which #YoSoy132 could take root and develop a manifesto, whilst social media allowed the
movement to easily disseminate and communicate its ideas.
After one month of demonstrations, stunts, national inter-university assemblies, videos and
debate around the media, the protesters had attracted a lot of attention and, as a group, became
an important political actor and social agent during the presidential campaign. First, for the first
time, the movement catapulted the issue of the democratization of the Mexican media system to
the forefront of the public and political agendas. Second, the agitators persuaded the two major
TV networks to broadcast the second presidential candidates’ debate nationally – Televisa and
TV Azteca had broadcast the first one only via their minor affiliate networks, resulting in parts
of the country not being able to see the debate. Finally, the protesters organized a third debate with
the presidential candidates on 19 June – the first one organized by civil society and by any orga-
nization other than the Federal Electorate Institute. They named it ‘Debate plus 131’, and it was
broadcast on YouTube, as well as by some public and university radio stations. According to the
#YoSoy132 movement, 112,000 viewers watched it via YouTube streaming. However, Enrique
Pen
˜
a Nieto did not attend because, he argued, there were no neutral conditions in which to carry
out the debate (http://www.youtube.com/watch? v¼txWoCr1EXyE).
Becausetheywereabletohavesuchanimpactin just 1 month, it is possible to argue that the
#YoSoy132 movement can be viewed as a social and political ‘detonator’ that changed the
nature of the presidential campaign and was able to get the issue of the concentration and
democratization of the media on the public agenda and in the public sphere. Furthermore, they
attracted the attention of the ruling class and the mainstream media itself. This far-reaching
impact was reflected in a national survey of political culture, conducted in August of the same
year, where 44% clearly identified #YoSoy132 as a political actor (INEGI-SEGOB, 2012: 4).
The candidate Pen
˜
a Nieto still won, regaining power for the revamped PRI,
7
but he did not obtain
a majority in Congress. The resulting balance of political forces could, on some level, also be
considered further evidence of the impact of or the result of the influence of #YoSoy132 in the
senator and deputy elections.
After the presidential election, on 27 July, movement activists camped for 24 h outside
Televisa’s headquarters on Chapultepec Street in Mexico City. This symbolic event was the
culmination of a march in which different Mexican social actors converged with #YoSoy132 –
such as el Frente del Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra de San Salvador Atenco and the Mexican
Electricians Union, along with individuals of no political affiliation. Screaming ‘Pen
˜
a Nieto no
gano´, Televisa lo eligio´’ (Pen
˜
a Nieto did not win, Televisa chose him) and with posters and
banners sporting slogans such as ‘No aceptamos como futuro una sociedad dirigida por la
television’ (We do not accept as our future a society governed by TV), citizens expressed once
again their grievances against the media and its power to directly influence political power. A
few days later, the movement presented its ‘contrainforme’ (counter-report) on the 6 years of
Felipe Caldero´n’s government in which activists noted that during the Caldero´n administration
few steps had been taken regarding the media and communications industry, especially in
relation to the possibility of a new Telecommunication Act.
6 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
6
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
In this connection, many civil society organizations and academics specializing in commu-
nication and information rights (especially Asociacio´n Mexicana por el Derecho a la Informa-
cio´n and the Citizen Coalition Democracy and Media) collaborated with the #YoSoy132
movement in the discussions and workshops on media democratization. At the same time, the
movement created numerous documents (such as ‘reference terms’ and ‘proposal for constitu-
tional amendments in communications rights’), whilst also organizing a forum in order to discuss
the viability of communications reform with different key actors (senators, deputies, academics,
journalists, social activists, NGOs and the president of the Federal Commission of Tele-
communications – Cofetel).
But the importance of communication inside the movement went beyond these impressive
initiatives and the fight for media democratization. For many of the movement’s activists,
#YoSoy132 represented a powerful way to communicate with their peers, share visions about the
political and cultural reality of Mexico, confront their own concerns and dreams and feel that they
were not alone. It was a way to build new ties and reinforce existing ones, whilst contributing to a
strengthening of the Mexican social formation, undermined by years of bad politics, corruption,
criminality and general contempt for young people, alongside the criminalization of social protest.
The centrality of communication was also evident in the pivotal role played by media students,
with the help of journalism and communication universities, supported and endorsed by professors
and media scholars. Media scholars and students were able to bring the issue of media demo-
cratization and regulation to the fore, and media students were in the front line generating
discussions about the role of media in Mexican society and explaining the link between media
power and the political sphere. They raised awareness among other students who did not initially
see the importance of the media and preferred to focus on other aspects of the protest. They
provided courses, tutorship and seminars in relation to communication and the media. At one
level, they started to build a communicative citizenship (Rinco´n, 2008).
In this regard, it is possible to assert that these students’ media literacy (Costanza-Chock,
2012) is another important aspect of #YoSoy132, since their awareness of contemporary
media could help them to empower their fellow citizens (Rinco´n, 2008). Thus, we argue that
#YoSoy132 activists have reimagined through their practices new forms of communicative citi-
zenship. The lack of democracy within Latin American media systems has fostered the creation
of these kinds of creative citizenships. Media students pointed out that the Mexican media anom-
aly, in democratic terms, is precisely the cause of many of the other problems the country is fac-
ing; Pen
˜
a Nieto was the target not (only) because he came from the PRI party but (mainly)
because he represented the perfect media-constructed candidate, nothing more than a puppet
in the hands of the Televisa Network. Moreover, media students provided expertise in creating
YouTube videos, managing Facebook groups and so on to other students who were not used to
utilizing these online technologies. Of course, these are precisely communication technologies.
For most of this generation of young students such communication technologies are not some-
thing ‘new’, but perfectly ‘natural’, because the technologies are already embedded into their
daily routine. At the same time, despite the importance of media literacy, the students argued the
need for interdisciplinarity, because they were addressing complex issues that could not be
solved by working groups of students from any single discipline.
The available literature on the #YoSoy132 movement has repeatedly stressed the importance
of the use of social media platforms (Andio´n, 2013; Sosa, 2012), but few have problematized this
use or made distinctions between technologies. In the next section, therefore, we explore the
movement’s uses of social media to provide some insights.
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
7
7
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Exploring #YoSoy132 social media practices
In this section, we look to examine one aspect of the Mexican student movement’s engagement
with communication technologies, that is, its use of social media platforms. As highlighted in
the previous section, social media played an important role inside the movement, even if – as we
argue – the issue and importance of communication goes well beyond the adoption of these
online platforms. Nevertheless, they were certainly significant in contributing to strengthening
the communicative citizenship of young Mexicans. In this section, we first shed light on the
variety and richness of social media platform activity in evidence during the protest. Then, we
explore an aspect that has been neglected in literature on the movement to date: the problems that
have arisen due to the adoption of these media.
Affordances and appropriations: Harnessing the power of multiple social media platforms
Within the Mexican movement, communication technologies and social media in particular were
used for multiple purposes and gave rise to several kinds of appropriation. In order to understand
these practices, we think that it is vital to take into account, on the one hand, the affordances that
a certain platform can offer and, on the other hand, the uses, appropriation or process of domes-
tication that activists employ. Communication technologies function as affordances, providing
spaces that enable and restrain certain practices, and social actors negotiate, make decisions about,
adopt and subvert these affordances within the given sociocultural, political and economic contexts
according to their needs and aims but are also driven by their emotions and feelings.
First, there was YouTube and the power and immediacy of video messages by the counter-
publics that it made available (Coleman and Ross, 2010). Videos have been at the centre of
#YoSoy132’s practices: the video in response to the discrediting of their protest by mainstream
media, their manifesto, the online alternative debate and the thousands of videos documenting
the actions, marches, rallies, occupations and demonstrations all around the Mexican Republic.
The power of audiovisual messages was understood and embraced by the movement. The first
video message in which students displayed their university identity cards in order to identify
themselves and prove that they were not mercenaries driven by external ‘malevolent’ forces
(as they were depicted according to the PRI strategy), but Mexican students who were protesting
injustice and media propaganda represent a masterpiece of social media savviness. Six hours
after it had been posted on YouTube, the video had already garnered more than 20,000 views
and was used by some mainstream media as a source of information. At the time of writing (May
2013), the number of views has risen to over 1.2 million. Young people’s familiarity with the
YouTube portal allowed them – as one interviewee reported – to ‘fully understand the possibi-
lities of the medium’. Besides the extraordinary symbolic power of video messages, students also
exploited the viral possibilities of social media by circulating the videos through Facebook,
Twitter, Googleþ, Hi5, blogs and websites.
Another key platform was Twitter. As in the case of the Occupy movement which is often
referred to as ‘#Occupy’ – that is, with the hashtag – so, according to our informant Julio,
#YoSoy132 is also ‘son of Twitter hashtag’. The fact of having the hashtag sign incorporated in
the name of the movement itself testifies how much is identified with the use of this online
platform. After the first video was posted on YouTube, the phrase ‘131 Alumnos de la Ibero’
became a Twitter trending topic in Mexico and across the world. For five consecutive days, the
#YoSoy132 hashtag was the leading hashtag in Mexico and one of the 10 most important
8 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
8
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
worldwide (ILLUMINATI LAB, 2012). Students see Twitter as the political platform par
excellence and perceive it as the main resource for disseminating political debate to audiences.
#YoSoy132’s protesters saw Twitter as the social media platform with ‘more reach capabilities’,
‘a technology’, as Julio puts it, ‘with so many ways of reaching people that we are still not able to
understand all its possibilities’. Thus, the movement used Twitter to disseminate and send
information viral, knowing that their Twitter followers were more interested in politics than, for
example, Facebook users. Twitter was also crucial because the posts generated on the platform
‘were used and circulated by journalists and information professionals’ (interview with Iva´n). It
was the social media of choice among journalists in order to obtain ‘fresh’ information on what
#YoSoy132 was doing.
Whilst Twitter was used mainly to circulate content and by the newspaper press in order to gain
information on the movement’s activities, it did not allow for a complex dialectic between external
information dissemination and closed group discussions. Therefore, given its technological
affordances, it was not the platform of choice for internal organization. Whilst Twitter’s reach is
seen as ‘operating on a more massive scale’ (interview with Iva´n) and ‘having more reach in terms
of viralization’ (Viridiana), it was Facebook that was used for internal organization for two main
reasons: First, its structure allows for the creation of closed groups that can exchange information
among members; second, whilst it was also used to set up and share events, activists perceived its
reach as ‘not as powerful as Twitter’ (Alexandria), and its audiences are seen by protesters as ‘not
so political as those of Twitter’ (Aura), interested instead in entertainment and more ‘futile’ issues.
That understanding or perception of Facebook did not stop students from performing multiple
activities on the platform. First, it represented an effective way to ‘create events, meetings, rallies
and assemblies’ (Aura), it was ‘the way the protest against Pen
˜
a Nieto in the Universidad Iber-
oamericana was planned’ (Miriam), a medium that ‘allowed us to learn things that were going on’
(Berenice), ‘launch calls and campaigns’ (Tlatoani) and a way ‘to look for other affinity groups,
organizations and collectives, to get in touch and bond with them’ (Berenice). The most visible part
of the platform was thus used to launch campaigns and calls for marches and demonstrations that
everyone could see and ‘like’. Whilst the other ‘hidden’ section, constituted by the possibility of
creating closed groups, was used in order to ‘solve internal organizational issues and make important
decisions’ (Aura), which were later communicated using the more ‘visible’ part of the platform.
Here we can see the importance of exploring the dialectical relation between the technological
affordances of such platforms and users’ appropriation of them. Facebook groups represented the
organizational backbone of the movement and worked as ‘spaces of decision-making, construction,
planning, tasks distribution, and moreover, they were our meeting points when we could not meet
because we were in different universities’ (Areli). Therefore, the most important discussions took
place via the inner part of the platform, ‘carried out mainly through the Facebook chat’ (Tlatoani).
The website yosoy132media represented instead the ‘institutional face of the movement’ (Ivan)
and was mainly used for two reasons. First, at a more internal level, it represented a repository of
the movement’s collective memory, where activists could access the official documents and reflect
on their own practices. It was an online space where activists could find videos, audio and texts on
the protest ordered according to date and with a brief description and used by interested parties
when they needed to recall a certain event or download a document. Second, at an external
communication level, it served as an online space where journalists could acquire ‘official’
information without having to chase the news through multiple platforms. Journalists used the
website to access additional information both when Twitter posts were insufficient and when they
needed historical information as background for their articles.
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
9
9
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Social media paranoia
In this section, we show that activists’ adoption of social media inside the Mexican movement was
not without frictions and problems. Issues of data exploitation, surveillance and threats to privacy
relating to the use of social media have often been noted in recent literature on activism (Barassi
and Trere´, 2012; Costanza-Chock, 2008; Fuchs, 2013; Morozov, 2011; Trere´, 2012) but rather
neglected in the academic literature on #YoSoy132. It is necessary to remember that social media
platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are platforms owned and controlled by US cor-
porations – they do not represent media created autonomously by movement activists but are only
platforms used and ‘colonized’ by them. Thus, exploring the ways users integrate the platforms
into their own practice – and how they are ‘resisted’ by users – is key for a nuanced understanding
of social media.
In the case of the Mexican movement, the issue of data exploitation by neo-liberal corporate
platforms was never thoroughly discussed. The discussion developed by the ‘Media Demo-
cratization Task Force’ on media democratization, concentration and manipulation regarding
Televisa and TV Azteca was thus not paired with reflections on the very nature of corporate
social media platforms. This suggests, in line with recent studies (Young and Quan-Haase,
2013), that the use of personal data for targeted advertising has already become an accepted
social norm. However, this does not mean that the students were not concerned about these
issues. Whilst issues relating to data exploitation by corporations were not addressed, issues
related to control and surveillance by the State were a cause of concern for activists. However,
they did not deal with these issues rationally, expressing instead a general sense of paranoia
around social media such as Facebook and their use of mobile phones. Students referred to their
sense of being spied on and controlled by institutions as ‘social media paranoia’. The develop-
ment of this general sense of paranoia reveals the importance that emotional aspects played
within the movement’s activities. Whilst approaches such as resource mobilization theory see
social movements as comprised of rational individuals whose choices around communication
technologies are also rational and focused on concrete aims, we see here the importance played
by the emotional aspects around media, because students rarely approached these issues in terms
of rational choices based on understandings of how the platforms work; instead, they were wor-
ried about something that could be happening in ‘unknown and mysterious ways’ (Berenice).
Another important aspect is the procedural nature of the development of this media paranoia.
When the movement emerged, there was a pressing need to communicate through social media and
problems or implications related to the adoption of these communication technologies were not
debated. According to Berenice, ‘there was light social media paranoia on adopting Facebook that
was almost immediately discarded’. As Tlatoani recalls:
The work we needed to accomplish required us to reach an agreement on Facebook so we slowly
decided to leave beside this paranoia that they could spy on us or get to know what we were doing. ...
Because we were also aware that if the State want to spy on us, it is going to do it anyway ...
But 1 December 2012 marked a decisive turning point. On that day (known as #1Dmx), during
the presidential inauguration of Enrique Pen
˜
a Nieto, various demonstrations were suppressed by
federal and local police operations. The operations involved the Presidential office, the Federal
Public Security Secretariat, the Secretariat of Public Security of the DF and groups coordinated
with the police forces. For almost 10 h, Mexico City centre was besieged by a wave of violence
triggered by the police forces of federal and local government against demonstrations, and several
10 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
10
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
activists were wounded and held prisoners (Gilly, 2013). After this date, paranoia in relation to
social media increased, as it emerges from Alexandria’s words:
After #1Dmx we had to rethink our online behaviour on Facebook. ...We had uploaded thousands of
personal pictures and information since May and then we suddenly had to shut down various groups,
take care regarding our posts and pictures. ...It was a moment of crisis and danger where we realized
that our security fence was not very real.
A research brief published in March 2013 by the ‘Citizen Lab’, part of the Munk School of
Global Affairs of the University of Toronto (Marquis-Boire et al., 2013), revealed that Mexico
was among seven new countries where the FinFisher surveillance software was found, somehow
‘confirming’ students’ paranoia. This software, developed and sold by Gamma International,is
able to monitor people’s activities on digital platforms and social media as well as read encrypted
files and emails. It was used extensively in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, and it was
found on the servers of communication corporations Telmex and IUSAcell in Mexico. After
strong political pressure from several online activists and human rights groups such as Contin-
gente MX and Propuesta Cı´vica, it was revealed that the PGR, the Mexican General Attorney’s
Office (Procuradurı´a de la Repu
´
blica Mexicana), acquired FinFisher/Finspy in 2012. According
to the Reforma news agency,
8
with this spyware the PGR is able to locate in real time everyone
using a mobile phone within the Mexican borders (Agencia Reforma, 2013).
Conclusions: Achievements and challenges of the movement
In order to understand the importance of the changes brought about by the #YoSoy132 movement
as a powerful social and political actor, it is crucial to remember the means by which the PRI
political party have for decades criminalized young people. According to the PRI, since the
Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, young Mexican people have never had proper ‘agency’ but were
always manipulated by some ‘external entity’, such as the Central intelligence Agency (in the stone
throwing at President Luis Echeverrı´a A
´
lvarez in 1975) or the Mexican Communist Party.
This time, the PRI’s strategy to criminalize the protest and remove agency from the students
was not successful due to many factors, including the fact that in the era of social media vir-
alization it is easier to generate national and global resonance around the activities of governments
and institutions that are increasingly held accountable for their actions, for their lies and for their
attempts to criminalize protest.
In this article, we have argued that the #YoSoy132 movement took place in an emerging
democratic context, merging with the student struggles of the last century, and evidenced real
possibilities of social agency for the students. This was why Mexican activists were able in a short
period of time to influence the Mexican electoral process and to become an important agent that
could structurate the political and sociocultural dimensions. On the political side, in the short term,
they (a) had an impact on the campaign and election results so that no political party was able to
obtain a majority in Congress and (b) put the issue of media concentration and democratization on
the public agenda and helped to foster the so-called Reform of Telecom proposal made by the three
largest parties (PRI, PAN and PRD) and the new federal government, in the context of a wider
‘Agreement for Mexico’ (Pacto por Me´xico) that includes many other important reforms. We view
this political move of the ruling party as being driven by two main factors: On the one side, Pen
˜
a
Nieto saw this as an opportunity to legitimize his government, after the controversy and a proposal
by the left party (PRD) and its candidate to nullify the election results; on the other side, it was a
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
11
11
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
subtle way to ‘deactivate’ the #YoSoy132 movement by letting protesters get ‘what they wanted’.
Thus, it marked a turning point in Mexican politics, above all because many young people with
no prior history of being politically active joined the movement and started to develop a sense
of collective identity.
In order to complete our critical analysis, it is important to point out what, in our opinion, could
be considered two ‘mistakes’ made by the #YoSoy132 movement. On the one side, they under-
estimated (paradoxically) the power of the mainstream media, whilst also overestimating the
power of social media in Mexico. When activists organized the third presidential debate, they did
not allow mainstream media in to televise the debate, arguing that they were the Internet generation
and they would only disseminate the debate online. But, as we demonstrated above, the majority of
the Mexican population keep themselves politically informed via TV, so #YoSoy132 failed to
disseminate their ideas to the majority of Mexicans. A second failure that could be attributed to the
movement is that in the course of their protesting they tried to address too many issues and fight on
too many fronts. As a result, they started to become less effective and lose the focus of their
original demands for clean elections and the democratization of the media.
The change that the movement brought to the Mexican context was not only political,
however, but also cultural. #YoSoy132 was able to alter the attitudes of young people who had
not previously been interested in politics (Sosa, 2012) by creating new ways of participation and,
as described above, by building new forms of communicative citizenship through meetings,
assemblies, seminars, discussions, marches, debates and occupations. The movement gave
young people a sense of strength and a strong belief in their power to ‘make a difference’. Social
media played a pivotal role by providing online spaces for circulating information and orga-
nizing, by creating counter-hegemonic sites of struggles and by contributing to the awareness
and strengthening of communicative citizenship. However, the appropriation of these online
media by the movement also generated concerns, in particular in relationtomattersofcontrol
and surveillance by the government, what activists referred to as ‘social media paranoia’.
Finally, the movement was able to create new student collectives and revitalize the existing ones
who can together fight for better conditions inside educational institutions, whilst also extending the
growing concern about and discussion of media power to the wider population in bars, restaurants
and workplaces and in places where such discussion was previously almost completely absent. The
future presents various challenges for the students who will have to keep their ‘critical milieu’ alive.
During the 2012 elections, the movement worked effectively to change the balance of political
power, a necessary condition for ensuring the social accountability of Mexican institutions. It will
now have to prove that it can continue to be an agent of social change in the long term.
Acknowledgement
We wish to thank the activists of the #YoSoy132 movement for their constant feedback and com-
ments, in particular the ‘Taskforce for Media Democratization’.
Authors’ Note
Both the authors contributed equally to this article.
Funding
ET’s work was supported by the Mexican PROMEP program (grant number 103.5/12/3667) and
the UAQ-FOFI Research Grant (grant number DPI /474/2012) of the Autonomous University of
Quere´taro, Mexico.
12 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
12
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Notes
1. This party ruled Mexico for 70 years (1930–2000). The Peruvian Nobel prize of literature Mario Vargas
Llosa in 1990 characterized this regime as ‘the perfect dictatorship’ in the context of ‘Encuentro Vuleta’
organized by Televisa and the Mexican Nobel prize of literature Octavio Paz (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v¼kPsVVWg-E38).
2. All the figures related to the Mexican 2012 presidential campaign surveys are available at:http://www.
adnpolitico.com/encuestas (accessed 17 April 2013).
3. The official margin of difference between Caldero´n and Lo´pez Obrador was 0.58%.
4. Those elections were characterized as overusing negative campaigns as strategy especially against Lo´pez
Obrador; at the same time, the Fox administration used all the possibilities that it had to try to help his
candidate Felipe Calderon to win the election, also Lo´pez Obrador made many mistakes during the cam-
paign resulting in the loss of his advantage. Nevertheless, there was still a lot of doubt about the final
results because it was a small margin, and during the day of the counting of ballots, many specialists in
mathematics observed some data inconsistencies and, at the same time, many specialists observed a weak
role of the electoral authority and massive irregularities (Crespo, 2008).
5. The most important public service network, Channel 11 covers only 47% of the Mexican Republic, and it
has an audience share of 3% at the national level. There are some Mexican states that just have two open
signal television channels. For example, Zacatecas can only receive channel 2 (Televisa) and 13 (TV
Azteca).
6. According to a report of Asociacio´n Mexicana de Internet, the Federal District (Distrito Federal) is the
second state in terms of Internet users with 4.4 million.
7. The final count had Pen
˜
a Nieto with 38.21% support, leftist Andre´s Manuel Lo´pez Obrador of the
Democratic Revolution party with 31.59% and Josefina Vazquez Mota of the conservative National
Action party with 25.41%. The small New Alliance Party got 2.29%.
8. See http://www.am.com.mx/leon/mexico/derrocha-la-pgr-en-equipo-espia-29702.html
References
AMIPCI (2013) Estudio sobre los ha´bitos de los usuarios de internet en Me´xico 2013. Available at: http://
www.amipci.org.mx/?P¼esthabitos (accessed 2 June 2013).
Agencia Reforma (2013) Derrocha la PGR en equipo espı´a, published on 6 July 2013. Available at: http://
www.am.com.mx/leon/mexico/derrocha-la-pgr-en-equipo-espia-29702.html (accessed 5 August 2013).
Andio´n M (2013) Las redes sociales virtuales como medios alternativos al poder de la telecracia en Me´xico.
Versio
´
n 31: 42–55.
Barassi V and Trere´ E (2012) Does Web 3.0 come after Web 2.0? Deconstructing theoretical assumptions
through practice. New Media & Society 14(8): 1269–1285.
Bennett WL and Segerberg A (2013) The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization
of Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cando´n Mena J (2013) Toma la Calle, Toma las Redes: El movimiento 15 M en Internet. Sevilla: Editorial
Atrapasuen
˜
os.
Castells M (2012) Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity
Press.
Coleman S and Ross K (2010) The Media and the Public. ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ in Media Discourse. Oxford:
Wiley-Blackwell.
Costanza-Chock S (2008) The immigrant rights movement on the net: between ‘Web 2.0’ and comunicacio´n
popular. American Quarterly 60(3): 851–864.
Costanza-Chock S (2012) Mic check! Media cultures and the Occupy movement. Social Movement Studies:
Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest 11(3–4): 1–11.
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
13
13
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Couldry N (2012) Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity.
Crespo JA (2008) 2006: Hablan las Actas. Las Debilidades de la Autoridad Electoral Mexicana.Me´xico:
Debate.
Earl J and Kimport K. (2011) Digitally Enabled Social Change: Activism in the Internet Age.Cambridge:
Mit Press.
Flick U (2009) An Introduction to Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
Fuchs C (2013) Social media and capitalism. In: Olsson T (ed) Producing the Internet. Critical Perspectives
of Social Media. Go¨teborg: Nordicom, pp. 25–44.
Gerbaudo P (2012) Tweets and the Streets. London: Pluto Press.
Gilly A (2013) Operativo 1DMX: Provocacio
´
n desde arriba. 24 de abril, La Jornada, Me´xico. Available at:
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2013/04/24/opinion/018a1pol (accessed 20 July 2013).
Go´mez R, Sosa G, Tellez P, et al. (2011) Mapping Digital Media: Me
´
xico. London: Open Society
Foundations-Media Program. Available at: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/articles_publications/
publications/mapping-digital-media-mexico-20110613 (accessed 1 February 2013).
Hands J (2011) @ is for Activism: Dissent, Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture. London: Pluto Press.
Hesmondhalgh D (2013) Cultural Industries. London: Sage.
Huerta WE and Go´mez R (2013) Concentracio´n y diversidad de los medios de comunicacio´n y las teleco-
municaciones en Me´xico. Comunicacio
´
nySociedad19: 113–152.
ILLUMINATI LAB (2012) ‘140 Trending Topics que hicieron historia’. Social Media Intelligence, Me´xico.
Available at: http://goo.gl/TLA6Ej (accessed 14 July 2013).
INEGI-SEGOB (2012) Encuesta Nacional Sobre Cultura Polı
´
tica y Practices Ciudadanas ENCUP 2012.
Me´xico: Segob.
Juris J (2012) Reflections on #Occupy everywhere: Social media, public space, and emerging logics of
aggregation. American Ethnologist 39(2): 259–279.
Lievrouw L (2011) Alternative and Activist New Media. Cambridge: Polity.
Marquis-Boire M, Marczak B, Guarnieri C, et al. (2013) You only click twice: FinFisher’s global prolifera-
tion. Available at: https://citizenlab.org/2013/03/you-only-click-twice-finfishers-global-proliferation-2/
(accessed 13 March 2013).
Mattoni A (2012) Media Practices and Protest Politics: How Precarious Workers Mobilise.Farnham:Ashgate.
McCurdy P (2011) Theorizing activists’ ‘‘lay theories of media’’: A case study of the Dissent! network at the
2005 G8 summit. International Journal of Communication 5: 619–638.
Morozov E (2011) The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: Public Affairs.
Mosco V (2009) The Political Economy of Communication. 2nd ed. Washington: Sage.
Reguillo R (2012) Reflexiones iniciales en torno a #YoSoy132. Magis, Guadalajara, 28 de Mayo 2012.
Available at: http://www.magis.iteso.mx/redaccion/reflexiones-iniciales-en-torno-yosoy132 (accessed
21 July 2013).
Rinco´n O (2008) No ma´s audiencias, todos devenimos productores. Comunicar, v. XV(30): 93–98.
Sa´nchez Ruiz E (2004) Comunicacio
´
n y Democracia.Me´xico: IFE.
Sigler E (2013) Publicidad mo´vil apunta a las ‘‘tablets’’. CNNExpansio´n, 25 de enero, 2013. Available at:
http://www.cnnexpansion.com/negocios/2013/01/24/la-publicida-movil-apunta-a-las-tablets (accessed
20 July 2013).
Sosa G (2012) #YoSoy132: Jo´venes frente a las redes sociales y la democratizacio´n de los medios. In: Arango
C, Ban
˜
uelos F, Quijano P and Sosa G (eds) Esfera Pu
´
blica y Tecnologı
´
as de la Informacio
´
n y Comunica-
cio
´
n.Me´xico: IEDF, pp. 81–120.
Trejo R (2004) Poderes Salvajes. Mediocracia sin Contrapesos.Me´xico: Cal y Arena.
Trere´ E (2012) Social movements as information ecologies: Exploring the coevolution of multiple Internet
technologies for activism. International Journal of Communication 6: 2359–2377.
Tuckman J (2012) Mexican media scandal: secretive Televisa unit promoted PRI candidate. The Guardian,
26 June. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/mexican-media-scandal-televisa-
pri-nieto (accessed 10 February 2013).
14 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
14
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
Uldam J and Askanius T (2013) Online civic cultures: debating climate change activism on YouTube.
International Journal of Communication 7: 1185–1204.
Wolton D (1998) La comunicacio´n polı´tica: construccio´n de un modelo. In: Ferry JM and Wolton D (eds) El
Nuevo Espacio Pu
´
blico. Barcelona: Gedisa, pp. 28–46.
Young AL and Quan-Haase A (2013) Privacy protection strategies on Facebook: the Internet privacy paradox
revisited. Information, Communication & Society 16(4): 479–500.
Author biographies
Rodrigo Go
´
mez Garcı
´
a is a Senior Lecturer in Communication and Cultural Policies in the Universidad
Auto´noma Metropolitana at Mexico City where he coordinates the Observatory of industries, policies and
cultural consumption. He is former President of the Mexican Association of Communication Research, and
at present, he is the Co-chair of the Political Economy of Communication section of the International Asso-
ciation of Media Communication Research.
Emiliano Trere
´
is an Associate Professor at the Autonomous University of Quere´taro, Mexico. His work has
been published in New Media & Society, the International Journal of Communication, Global Media and
Communication, and Communication & Society. He is writing a book provisionally titled Contemporary Mex-
ican Struggles and Digital Resistance.
Go
´
mez and Trere
´
15
15
at UNIV DE GUADALAJARA on July 25, 2014con.sagepub.comDownloaded from
