No, it did Not Grow Up because of the Internet: The Emergence of 2011's Student Mobilization in Chile

Abstract

While there is a general agreement on the contribution that Internet has implied for social mobilisation regarding information and networked sociability, there is a strand sustaining that the web and new technologies of communication have the power to liberate people, introduce democracy and democratize nations. In this paper, the author deals with these perspectives with a special focus on Latin America and Latin American quests for democracy. Taking the case of the Chilean students movement of 2011, he describes and analyses a set of "old" and basic communicative practices located within the walled intimacy of houses, occupied schools and assemblies. This description and analysis brings to the fore mediations that being at the very emergence of the movement, underlies and exceeds the Internet, providing elements to light up what technological determinisms shadow: the senses and sensibilities displayed in practices looking for voice, participation and recognition in the middle of neoliberal democracies.