Facebook Argentina's new political battleground
(Originally appeared in iQ October 29, 2012)
Thousands crowded into plazas in cities across Argentina one Thursday evening in September in the largest show of force since President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected last October with 54 percent of the vote and a 40-point spread over her opponent.
People said they were demonstrating against the government’s economic restrictions; out of fear the president could amend the constitution in order to seek a third term and because of a sense of growing poverty and incidences of violent crime that bely official government statistics.
For the first time in Argentina -- a country that’s no stranger to social unrest -- a large-scale, multi-city protest was organized over the Web, delivering a strong message to a government opponents say has insulated itself and become increasingly deaf to criticism.
Like the famous cacerolazos that erupted when Argentina’s government froze private bank assets following its 2001 sovereign debt default, masses of people banged on pots and pans, held up posters and chanted. Demonstrators also posted video to YouTube and pictures to Facebook and tweeted in real-time, creating a digital archive that has since served to challenge the partisan media accounts later published. The dynamism of social media also complicates the government’s characterization of the protesters as a small, self-interested, wealthy urban elite.
Similar to social movements in Arab Spring countries and Occupy Wall Street in the U.S., Argentine protesters from varied backgrounds have circumvented mainstream media channels and political institutions to organize themselves. This in itself challenges the traditional way of politicking in Argentina, where the ruling party and its supporters use the banner of patriotism to lambast their critics as opposed to progress.
The September demonstration was a testament to the opposition’s heterogeneity. Without leaders or a stated agenda, the march has become a specter of mass mobilization that threatens to further erode the president's program.
Kirchner's government, taking a page from ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is consolidating its control over traditional media, buying up commercial radio and TV stations and boosting the advertising sales of favorable cable TV programs and sympathetic publications with its swelling publicity budget. At the same time, Kirchner rarely holds press conferences or allows journalists to ask questions at public events.The result, says Jorge Lanata, the host of the Sunday news program Periodismo Para Todos (Journalism for Everyone), is that disgruntled citizens are turning to other outlets to express their grievances, bypassing government censures and using the relative anonymity of the Web to shield themselves from retribution.
Still recovering from Argentina's decades-long dictatorship, Lanata says, “People are afraid to be the first to criticize. What's happening right now is huge. People are overcoming their fear, emboldened by the community of like-minded thinkers they find online,” he said.
Argentines’ zeal for new media hasn’t escaped the government’s attention.
Periodismo Para Todos reported in May that the government was financing an army of 400 twitterers to tweet favorably about government policy and the president.
The administration of President Kirchner, who was re-elected to a second term last October after succeeding her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner, has devoted an ever larger piece of the annual government publicity budget – which critics deride as partisan propaganda -- to social media, says Liliana Karagumechian, a 2.0 "political marketing" specialist. “It’s indispensable today to have a presence in this media in order to politic effectively,” she says.
Despite the adoption of new media, Argentines are no less likely to take to the streets. Another nationwide protest is set for November 8.
Thousands crowded into plazas in cities across Argentina one Thursday evening in September in the largest show of force since President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected last October with 54 percent of the vote and a 40-point spread over her opponent.
People said they were demonstrating against the government’s economic restrictions; out of fear the president could amend the constitution in order to seek a third term and because of a sense of growing poverty and incidences of violent crime that bely official government statistics.
For the first time in Argentina -- a country that’s no stranger to social unrest -- a large-scale, multi-city protest was organized over the Web, delivering a strong message to a government opponents say has insulated itself and become increasingly deaf to criticism.
Like the famous cacerolazos that erupted when Argentina’s government froze private bank assets following its 2001 sovereign debt default, masses of people banged on pots and pans, held up posters and chanted. Demonstrators also posted video to YouTube and pictures to Facebook and tweeted in real-time, creating a digital archive that has since served to challenge the partisan media accounts later published. The dynamism of social media also complicates the government’s characterization of the protesters as a small, self-interested, wealthy urban elite.
Similar to social movements in Arab Spring countries and Occupy Wall Street in the U.S., Argentine protesters from varied backgrounds have circumvented mainstream media channels and political institutions to organize themselves. This in itself challenges the traditional way of politicking in Argentina, where the ruling party and its supporters use the banner of patriotism to lambast their critics as opposed to progress.
The September demonstration was a testament to the opposition’s heterogeneity. Without leaders or a stated agenda, the march has become a specter of mass mobilization that threatens to further erode the president's program.
Kirchner's government, taking a page from ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, is consolidating its control over traditional media, buying up commercial radio and TV stations and boosting the advertising sales of favorable cable TV programs and sympathetic publications with its swelling publicity budget. At the same time, Kirchner rarely holds press conferences or allows journalists to ask questions at public events.The result, says Jorge Lanata, the host of the Sunday news program Periodismo Para Todos (Journalism for Everyone), is that disgruntled citizens are turning to other outlets to express their grievances, bypassing government censures and using the relative anonymity of the Web to shield themselves from retribution.
Still recovering from Argentina's decades-long dictatorship, Lanata says, “People are afraid to be the first to criticize. What's happening right now is huge. People are overcoming their fear, emboldened by the community of like-minded thinkers they find online,” he said.
Argentines’ zeal for new media hasn’t escaped the government’s attention.
Periodismo Para Todos reported in May that the government was financing an army of 400 twitterers to tweet favorably about government policy and the president.
The administration of President Kirchner, who was re-elected to a second term last October after succeeding her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner, has devoted an ever larger piece of the annual government publicity budget – which critics deride as partisan propaganda -- to social media, says Liliana Karagumechian, a 2.0 "political marketing" specialist. “It’s indispensable today to have a presence in this media in order to politic effectively,” she says.
Despite the adoption of new media, Argentines are no less likely to take to the streets. Another nationwide protest is set for November 8.
Dear Emily,
ReplyDeleteI read your blog almost every day. I'm interested in your foreign view of Argentina's current political and social situation. In this posting you forget to mention that the September multi-city protest was fueled by leaders of the opposition through Facebook, Twitter and TV, and some concentrated media groups through newspapers, news channels and political TV shows. Also, you mention that the government is buying up commercial radio and TV stations. It'd be great to know what stations. Also, I think it'd be interesting to learn about large groups of supporters of President Fernandez de Kirchner that are organized on Facebook (like the 8N yo no voy movement).
I'll keep reading your interesting blog.
All the best,