Abstract

ROBLES, José Manuel  and  CORDOBA-HERNANDEZ, Ana María. Commodification and Digital Political Participation: The “15-M Movement” and the Collectivization of the Internet. Palabra Clave [online]. 2018, vol.21, n.4, pp.992-1022. ISSN 0122-8285.  https://doi.org/10.5294/pacla.2018.21.4.3.

The objective of this article is to analyze an emerging process in the network society: the commodification of the Internet and political communication. This strategy of technological capitalism is becoming increasingly present in the lives of citizens around the world, and it represents a new challenge for critical thinking. In this article we will show the debate around this process and we will point out a few examples. However, despite the existence of this process of commodification, society is not taking a passive attitude. On the contrary, we have cases of social movements, such as the Spanish 15-M, which identified this process and designed a strategy to try to reverse it. However, and despite the efforts of this movement, many of the achievements of the 15-M against commodification have lost their validity. In this paper we review the current state of the debate on the commercialization of politics and, through a qualitative study, we show how the 15-M defined this process and established instruments to fight it. In the conclusions we discuss this process and show its current situation in Spain.

Keywords : Digital political participation; 15-M Movement; commodification; social movements; social change; cultural change.

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