Mobile ensembles: The uses of mobile phones for social protest by Spain¿s indignados

Abstract

During the 2011 wave of protests millions of citizens around the globe employed a vastrange of digital media to demand greater democratic freedoms and social justice.Although mobile phones were widely used in all these protests, their significanceremains unclear. This chapter draws from both qualitative and quantitative research toshed light on the recent uses of mobile technologies for social protest, with Spain¿sIndignados (or 15M) movement as the case study. The chapter argues for theimportance of processual analyses of the new protests that situate the uniqueness of each mobile technology and ¿mobile ensemble¿ within a particular moment in thecollective biography of a movement. This approach reveals the importance of smartphones as new articulators of online spaces and occupied physical spaces,especially via Twitter and live streaming.