Abstract
This chapter examines the online citizen journalism and debate site Política Stereo, showing how online social media can be used successfully to promote citizen debate, participation, and perhaps even action. Política Stereo served as a digital counter public sphere, encouraging debate and action by emphasizing dialogue among users with opposing viewpoints. Política Stereo’s experience suggests online debate can translate into offline action. Further, this case indicates the emergence of a Salvadoran Twitterati that served as experts and opinion leaders in the mainstream media, which helped bridge the digital divide. The analysis also pointed to a social media divide, in terms of which platforms were used and for what purposes, with implications for activism in digitally divided countries.
A version of this chapter was previously published in the International Journal of Communication.
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Notes
- 1.
Interviewees’ names were changed to protect their identity.
- 2.
In June 2011, thousands of Salvadorans took to the streets protesting the legislative assembly’s decision to limit the authority of the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Court. Legislators issued Decree 743, which required any court rulings to be unanimous, rather than based on a majority of four out of five judges. Protesters rallied via Facebook and Twitter, calling themselves “Los Indignados SV” (The Indignant—El Salvador) after Spain’s 15-M movement that had started a few weeks earlier. On July 28, the decree was overturned. Política Stereo interviewees said that while the movement started out as bipartisan, eventually it was co-opted by political parties from both sides of the spectrum looking to use the protesters’ momentum for political gains unrelated to the decree or constitutionality.
- 3.
WhatsApp, a mobile messaging service Facebook purchased for $19 billion in February 2014, has more than 450 million active monthly users. The service is dominant in the developing world, including Latin America, because it allows users to send text, photo, or video messages without the costly per-message fee typically charged by phone service providers.
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Harlow, S. (2017). Política Stereo. In: Liberation Technology in El Salvador. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48039-8_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48039-8_6
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