Social cybermovements and political responsiveness. Trending Topic cyber actions and online petitions in the 15-M protests context

Abstract

Literature about the crisis of democratic representation in electoral democracies has shown relevant deficiencies in the political responsiveness dimension. The crisis affects the capacity of representatives to respond citizen demands and its implementation in the decision-making process. The aim of this work is to analyse the situation about the problem of the crisis of political responsiveness, to detect its limitations and the possibilities for improvements from the field of social movements in the Social Web era. Specific literature and the direct observation of case studies related with the context of 15-M protests have been employed to contribute to the formation of the social cybermovements and political responsiveness studies. The communicative transformations developed in the new autonomous and participatory communication model (which arose from the irruption of social media) have promoted changes in the repertoires of collective action of social movements. We will describe how these new communicative strategies (Trending Topic cyber actions and online petitions) have the potential to influence on identified deficiencies of the crisis in the current political responsiveness.