Abstract
Drawing on interviews with social movements and organizations in Mexico and Spain, this paper sheds light on the dynamics of ‘backstage activism’ with a focus on WhatsApp. It illustrates how activists have integrated this app into their media ecologies to reinforce collective identity, cement internal solidarity and lower the pressure of protest. It shows that within WhatsApp groups, campaigners have countered the paranoia experienced in the frontstage of social media exchanging ironical material and intimate messages. It demonstrates that WhatsApp has been used as a robust organizational device and it is now firmly integrated into the mechanisms of organizations and movements. Its communicative affordances (speed, reliability, mobility, multimediality) in conjunction with the omnipresent smartphone are often emphasized. Nuancing characterizations that tend to either disregard its role or stress its negative side, this qualitative exploration foregrounds the banality of WhatsApp. This article unpacks the multiple roles of this app within the submerged practices of movements and organizations.
Highlights
Drawing on interviews with social movements and organizations in Mexico and Spain, this paper sheds light on the dynamics of ‘backstage activism’ with a focus on WhatsApp. It illustrates how activists have integrated this app into their media ecologies to reinforce collective identity, cement internal solidarity and lower the pressure of protest
In the context of this paper, the application of this lens entails that we can only assess the role played by WhatsApp within movements and political organizations if we evaluate WhatsApp-related practices in conjunction with other media technologies, platforms and their related communicative dynamics
During 2012 and 2013, while the gaze of Mexican scholars was almost obsessively centered on scrutinizing the frontstage of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, #YoSoy132 activists were already intensively engaging in practices of backstage activism on both Facebook chats and WhatsApp groups
Summary
Drawing on interviews with social movements and organizations in Mexico and Spain, this paper sheds light on the dynamics of ‘backstage activism’ with a focus on WhatsApp. It illustrates how activists have integrated this app into their media ecologies to reinforce collective identity, cement internal solidarity and lower the pressure of protest. In the several studies that have flourished around digital protest and activism since 2009 the role of this app has been generally overlooked, with the academic gaze firmly oriented towards social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
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