Reflexiones y teorías sobre aspectos políticos de las tecnologías en cuanto a su USO y en cuanto a su NATURALEZA política. Algunos resultados de un estudio de caso. Clase para el curso de Comunicación y Política del Magíster en Comunicación Estratégica de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

1. La Tecnopolítica
de los Medios Sociales
Comunicación y Política
Magíster en Comunicación Estratégica
Marcelo Luis B. Santos, profesor invitado
11 de Octubre, 2018

2. PARTE I: EL USO POLÍTICO
Política A TRAVÉS de las plataformas

3. Evolución de la Web
en cuanto a la sociabilidad
1969
ARPANET
• Web Militar
• Seguridad
1990s: Uso
comercial
• Web para
informáticos
• “Catálogos
online”
1999: Blogger
• Autopublicación
• Retroalimentación
• Popularización
2004-6: Facebook,
Flickr, YouTube e
Twitter
•Web Social
•Masificación
•Convergencia digital

4. Fuente: Ortiz, I., Burke, S., Berrada, M., & Cortés, H. (2013). World Protests 2006-2013 (p. 13)

5. Contexto TIC
• Ubicuidad Digital (Ganesh & Stohl, 2013)
• Creciente mediatización (Mortensen, 2015)
• Nuevas audiencias (Bruns, 2010; Biocca, 1988; Gillmor,
2010; Leadbeater y Miller, 2004; Livingstone, 2012; 2015;
Ridell, 2012; Rosen, 2006; Rubin, 2002; Toffler, 1980)
• Social Media Drivers (Wunsch-Vincent & Vickery,
2007)
– Tecnológico
– Social
#5
- Económico
- Institucional/Legal

6. Modelos Incorporación TIC
• Difusión (Rogers, 1986)
• Domesticación (Peil & Röser, 2012)
• Innovación, apoyado en Teoría Actor-Red (ANT,
Latour, 2012)
• Apropiación Social (Proulx, 2005; Proulx et al., 2007)
#6

7. Apropiación Social
• Apropiación Social Significativa (Proulx et al., 2007)
1. Acceso
2. Competencias Cognitivas
3. Uso Significativo
4. Uso Creativo
5. Inteligencia Colectiva
6. Incidencia en Políticas Públicas
• Apropiación Social Crítica (Mattelart, 2002)
#7

8. Apropiación Social - Definición
Proceso de internalización progresiva de competencias
técnicas y cognitivas operando entre individuos y
grupos que usan tales tecnologías en sus actividades
cotidianas (Proulx, 2005)
#8

9. Pero… ¿qué es participación política?
• Atributos mínimos de la participación política:
“…any voluntary, non-professional activity
concerning government, politics, or the state is
a specimen – a form – of political participation”
(Theocharis & van Deth, 2018, p. 143).
#9

10. Individualización de la
participación política
• Logics of Connective Action (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012)
– Marcos de Acción Personales
– Vaciamiento de las demandas (Porto & Brant, 2015)
• Relevancia de los individuos más que organizaciones
– Serial Activists (Bastos & Mercea, 2015)
– Individuos como punto de contacto y difusores en Twitter
(Santos y Condeza, 2017)
#10

11. Nuevos modos de PP (1/2)
• Coreographies of Assembly (Gerbaudo, 2012)
• Coordinación de individuos/organizaciones informales
(lazos débiles)  crítica de Gladwell (2010)
• Ad hoc publics (Bruns & Burgess, 2011)
• Transmedia Mobilization (Costanza-Chock, 2011),
Transmedia Testimonio (Zimmerman, 2016)
• Citizen documentary image conlleva a nuevas formas de
videoactivismo: Realidad en Tiempo Real y Registro Factual
(Renó, 2015)
#11

12. Nuevos modos de PP (2/2)
• DNP: Digitally Networked Participation (Theocharis, 2015)
(i) “the act of (digital) communication as a form of mobilization”
(ii) “The frequent embeddedness of self-expressive, identity, and
personalized elements as part of the action”
• E-mobilizations, e-tactics e-movements (Earl y Kimport,
2011) de menos a más según uso de funcionalidades web
• Autocomunicación de masas (Castells, 2009)
• Political UGC (Dylko & McCluskey, 2012)
• tUGC: testimonial User-Generated Content (Santos, 2018)
#12

13. (meta)Estudios de Efectos
Relación positiva entre uso de Medios Sociales y
Movimientos Sociales
• Boulianne (2015): 82% positiva
• Santos (2015): 86% positiva
 Es decir, a más uso de medios sociales, más actividad
de movimientos sociales (activismo, protesta etc.)
#13

14. Estudios de Efectos
#14
Fuente: Valenzuela, S. (2013). Unpacking the use of social media for protest behavior: The roles of
information, opinion expression, and activism. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(7), 920-942.
“The analysis indicates that using social media for expressing opinions
and using them for joining causes, but not news consumption, are
important mediating mechanisms” (Valenzuela, 2013, p. 16)

15. Estudio de Caso:
#ForaTemer

16. Del Testimonio…

17. … al Testimonial

18. Testimonial UGC is
the product of a communicative practice of an ICT user, who
as an ‘ordinary citizen’ being in a privileged time and
place, witnesses an extraordinary event, appropriates socially
and significantly digital communication technologies at hand to
document (recording directly in a media device) and
disseminate (publishing, sharing by own means) such event,
with traces of spontaneity characteristic of an opportunistic
testimony –as opposed to the planned registry.
18

19. Emergent tUGC Patterns
(conjugated attributes)
19
Pattern
Discursive
Function
Media
Standard Obtrusiveness
Constructed-
ness
Political
Stand
Political
tUGC*
Political
Action
Amateur
• 1st person
• 3rd person
• Mediated
Protest
Unedited
For
Journalistic
tUGC
Communi-
cation
• 3rd person
• 1st person
Neutral
Expressive
tUGC
Self-
Expression
• 1st person
• 3rd person
• Mediated
Protest
For
* Originally named “Amateur-like”

20. Issue Mapping: Top 10 hashtags*
20
* #ForaTemer is present in all data so it was disregarded

21. LONGITUDINAL ANALYSIS
Results >>

22. Stages
22

23. WHAT IS TUGC?
Conclusions >>

24. tUGC Definition
• Ordinary citizen is a “role”
• Fluidity of digital environment
• Communication is preceded by…
24
Politics
Fan Commitment
Serving the Good
Justice
Human Rights
Others

25. tUGC is
• Concrete manifestation of Collective Intelligence
• A mode of Digitally Networked Participation
• A form of Connective Action
• A tactic in the digital Repertoire of Contention
• An emancipated form of Connective Witnessing
25

26. HOW DO ATTRIBUTES VARY?
Conclusions >>

27. tUGC Patterns
• Vary day to day
– Planned x unplanned event
– Recent x assimilated
• Vary across stages
– Different attributes
– Different prominent users: role of alternative media during stages of
repression
• tUGC ≠ non-tUGC testimonials
– Prevalence of Witness (3rd person)
– Professional Media Standard (33% against 10% tUGC)
– Absence of Mediated Protest
27

28. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF TUGC?
Conclusions >>

29. Reach and Amplification (Gatewatching)
• Very small numbers
• Alternative Media such as Mídia NINJA boosts up
testimonial retweeting
• Twitter users seem to engage more with more known
testimonial sources, raising issues of:
– Trust and credibility still an issue for ordinary users
– Algorithmic effects on consumption of information
– Interviews show high value, but numbers deny it…
investigate further?
29

30. Long-Tail of tUGC takeaway
• Though perhaps we live in a digital ubiquity
environment, we haven’t reached a point of image
saturation (perhaps we will?)
• “Future reversed panopticon” is still a theoretical
possibility
• Currently, tUGC as a communicative practice is not a
guarantee that relevant in fraganti will happen
• “Contagion” and “Spontaneity” (Tilly, 1977)
30

31. Social Movements
• People Image Events (Santos after Delicath & Deluca,
2003): higher levels of coordination, or better
“choreographies of assembly” (Gerbaudo, 2012) to
pursue the mosaic of images
• Pseudo-events (Boorstin, 1961): depend on media
(or more prominent actors in case of Twitter)
• Political jiu-jitsu (Gene Sharp, 2003) against
repression: no evidence of abundant tUGC, but
testimonials from alternative media (who are
prepared for the clash)
31

32. Media Interplay
• Media as conversation primers/triggers
– 40 persons-protest
– Golpista, golpisto
– Temers’ broadcasted national TV speech
• Plenty of reaction from media events
32

33. Individual vs Organization
• Twitter Users predict retweets, not Organizational
Channel (or networks)  individualisation (Verweij &
van Noort, 2014) beyond news realm
• Other research points to the centrality of such actors
in activism (Bastos & Mercea, 2015; Condeza, Santos,
Lizama & Vásquez, 2016; Santos & Condeza, 2017)
#33

34. RQ4: HOW TUGC IS CREATED?
Conclusions >>

35. Who creates tUGC?
• Research doesn’t show demographics of Brazilian
twittersphere
• Instead, it shows that those who produce tUGC seem
to be formally educated, politicized citizens
• Not necessarily partisan, motives are related to
– Do the public a service
– Compensate biased media narratives
35

36. Creation and consumption
• Not necessarily planned, but definitely political
• Media norms seem to prevail, despite value assigned
to tUGC assessed on the interviews
– Production: journalistic discourse emulation, as “random
acts of journalism” (Lasica, 2003)
– Consumption: retweeting behaviour is similar, as “random
acts of gatewatching” (Bruns, 2018)
• Innovative fuzzy area: “Political-Aesthetical didactics”
by Mídia NINJA
• Use of multiple platforms: difficult to grasp
36

37. Self-expression
• Self-expression seems to be relevant for constituents
– “Publicity of participation” (Dencik & Leistert, 2015) turns
mediated protest into a legitimate form of political
participation
– Personalisation of political activity during protest: selfies,
videos, all with the public figure as protagonist inflate the
data (outliers)
• Network logics
– Self-expression makes more sense in a network where
family and/or friends are connected (thus, more applicable
to Facebook and Instagram)
37

38. Spontaneity
• Double-edged sword:
– Effect of reality and authenticity of the amateur aesthetics
(Polydoro, 2016)
– Due to little organic amplification, vast mobilization of
constituents would be necessary to populate the media
with tUGC.
• Examples: Witness (HR Organization) and No Alto Maipo
pamphlets
38

39. RQ5: ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES?
(TO USERS)
Conclusions >>

40. Value of tUGC
• tUGC is valuable against biased media, but was
not effective on short term
• Personal satisfaction, perception of political
participation
• No greater consequences due to political
polarization
– Personal
– Professional
40

41. PARTE I: LA NATURALEZA POLÍTICA
Política DE las plataformas

42. Cambios de paradigma
• Público x Privado
• Público x Privatizado
• Transparencia radical x Opacidad tecnológica
(contenido) (plataformas)
#42

43. Plataformas

44. Política de las plataformas
“The term [platform]… fits their efforts to shape
information policy, where they seek protection for
facilitating user expression, yet also seek limited
liability for what those users say”
(Gillespie, 2010, p. 347)
#44

45. Ausencia de regulación
• Términos de Uso y políticas de privacidad = visión
corporativa
• Autonomía de regulación + automación de monitoreo:
– Uso/contenido: p. ej. desnudo, “hate speech”, derechos de
autor etc.)
– Usuarios: p. ej. Amazon rechazando WikiLeaks como cliente
– Inteligencia Artificial es el fiscal
#45
“the state outsources interventions into citizens’ communication to these
platforms” (Hintz, 2015, p. 110).

46. El poder de las funcionalidades
#46

47. El poder de las funcionalidades
¿Por qué hacer visible una funcionalidad invisible?
1. Guerrilla de Relaciones Públicas
2. Un juego de fuerzas contra los Estados
3. Tradeoff masividad comercial versus utopía tech
#47
Ad impossibilita
nemo tenetur.

48. Diagnóstico Tim Berners-Lee (2017)
1. We’ve lost control of our personal data
2. It’s too easy for misinformation to spread on the
web
3. Political advertising online needs transparency and
understanding

49. Medios Sociales en Chile
(enero 2017)
• Conocimiento de RRSS
• WhatsApp y FB: 83%
• Linkedin: 69% vs 12% según clase social (26% promedio)
• Principal fuente de información
1. TV: 54%
2. RRSS: 23%
3. Diario (impreso o digital): 7%
• Nivel de Confianza
• + Radio: 44% (algo o mucha confianza)
• + Twitter: 40% (primera vez que tiene lucro 4Q/2017))
• - Diario: 38% (poca o nada de confianza)
• - FB/TV: 37%

50. Publicidad nivel mundial crece, pero:
65% con
5 big tech

51. Finanzas de Twitter
• Ingresos según Último Balance:
• Publicidad: USD 601mi (+23%)
• Venta de datos: USD 109mi (+29%)
•DATOS = 15% total ingresos

52. Capitalismo de Plataforma
• “Plataformización” de los negocios
• Datos son el alma del negocio: datificación de la
sociedad
• Advertising Platforms: Google, Facebook
• Cloud Platforms: AWS (Amazon Web Services)
• Industrial Platforms: GE
• Product Platforms: Spotify
• Lean Platforms: Uber

53. Cambridge Analytica
‘technological fascination’ Pavlíčková (2012):
“media historians have shown that the introduction and
spread of every new medium in society has always been
accompanied by the tendency to see the technology as
an agent of social change” (p. 39).
#53

54. Cambridge Analytica
Efecto (o más bien oportunidad): cierre sustancial del API
At a time of heightened concerns about user privacy,
substantial API-based access to public communication on
these platforms is crucial for scholars precisely because it is
only such research that can provide a transparent and
independent assessment of the problems that the social
media platforms are facing. Unlike the platforms and
commercial research companies, universities can be trusted
to take an independent perspective and to manage research
ethics with great care and nuance: incorrect assessments,
overt bias towards the platforms, and unethical engagement
with social media data would seriously damage their public
standing and destroy future careers. (Bruns, 2018a)

55. Colonialismo digital
• Control de la plataforma x control de la tecnología
• Facebook ‘Free Basics’
• si es gratis, tu eres el
producto
• Zuckerberg:
“mejor que nada”
#55

56. ¿De quién son los datos?
Dilemas y conflictos de interés:
• Movimiento “gobierno abierto”  Datos abiertos
• Datos de interés público privados
• Datos privados “inc.”
• Política editorial versus opacidad algorítmica
#56

57. Gracias.