1. globalrevolution/
network-movements/
technopolitics/
adrià rodríguez @adriaral
participating with Fundación de los Comunes
participating with #GRRN Global Revolution Research Network
developing Project Kairós www.projectkairos.net
berlin 31.01.2014

2. *A big part of the data and ideas here presented are the insights of the datanalysis15m research group
based in Barcelona, and the study “Tecnopolítica y 15M, la potencia de las multitudes conectadas”,
coordinated by Javier @Toret. Find more information here
All these slides are under a CC BY SA license

3. ON #GLOBALREVOLUTION
What does #globalrevolution means?
*comon patterns
*nation-State is no longer the framework
*protests get directly global
*geopolitical earthquake: shaking global
governance
*three transversal axis: the how, the who and the
what
technopolitics (how): new ways of affection
and comunication, Internet, social media, social
networks.
composition (who): highly-educated generation,
hyperconected youths, impoverishment, broken
social ladder, structural crisis labour market
(high unemployment rates, precarity and
flexibility as the norm), debt (household and/or
public debt), Structural Adjustment Plans and
neoliberal reforms, attack to the commons.
democracy (what): institutional crisis, crisis of
representation, nation-state crisis, governance
crisis, corruption, constitutional crisis.
The networked character of modern society
makes country-specific unrest predictions pointless. There is, in reality, one political entity that
matters. Right now it is more unequal than it’s
ever been; its core economic model is destroyed;
the consent of its citizens to be governed
is eroded. It is the world - Paul Mason
(on The Economist’ unrest predictions)

4. ON #GLOBALREVOLUTION
Number of world protests by main grievance/demand 2006-2013

5. ON #GLOBALREVOLUTION
The logics of contagion and the protests worldwide
2010-2013
#15o 2011
World protest in more than 1000 cities

6. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
1. Twitterevolution?
or
*Technopolitics paradigm
Technopolitics is not clicktivism nor cyberactivism.
Technopolitics is not just the mere use of the
Internet and social networks, but a new paradigm of
political organization, affection, communication and
struggling through and within the net.
Technopolitics is not about Internet itself but about
the capacity of Internet to increase the political
potentialities of the hiperconected multitudes, to
increase capacities of cooperation and affection
between brains/bodies through the Internet tools.
Technopolitics paradigm is not homogenic, there are
differences between countries and regions: differences
on digital divide, internet cultures, and digital
alphabetization.
Internet use grows a 20%
during the emergence
of the #15m and the
occupation of the squares
all around Spain in 2011.
This increase is mainly on
the use of Facebook and
Twitter.
<VIDEO. #15m:
the squares and the net>

7. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
New political paradigm
#15m 2011 network
(cooperation and interaction)
spanish political parties network
(competitivity and identity)

8. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
2. Social movements?
or
*Network-system
*Network-movements
Network-system its a complex network
with a multiplicity of nodes which are
articulated organically and in a ever
changing way.
Network-movements go beyond the
sociological cathegory of social movements.
They are articulated through the network
and reach and involve a much more larger
number of people than the ‘former’ social
movements.

9. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
network-system #15m
2011
network-system #15m
2012

10. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
3. Horizontailty? Leaderless?
or
*Transversality
*Distributed/temporary/
coreographical leadership
Social media use is not characterized by absolute
horizontality, but is rather accompanied by the rise
of new forms of soft leadership. The term “choreography” is a metaphor to render the idea that at
the time of social media protest activity is not as
spontaneous and disorganised as it might appear
at first sight. Rather, by using social media, acting
as Facebook admins or popular movement tweeps,
contemporary digital activists come to act as choregraphers or soft leaders of sorts - Paolo Gerbaudo

11. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
transversality and distributed/temporary/coreographical leadership

12. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
4. Fiction vs. Real?
or
*Geoterritory-Cyberterritory
*Simbiosis
*Multilayer revolt
*Augmented-event
<EGYPT:
Tweeting Mubarak’s overthrow>
Not everyone in the world is in
the Internet, but everyone in the
Internet is in the world
- @Ciudadadano_zero0

13. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
multilayer revolt

14. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
voces25s
2012

15. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
5. Mass media vs. alternative media?
or
*Global public sphere
*Distributed journalism
We can hope for a transformation of
mass-media power that will overcome
contemporary subjectivity, and for the
beginning of a post-media era of collective-individual reappropriation and an
interactive use of machines of information, communication, intelligence, art and
culture. -F.Guattari (1990)
<TWEETS:
Viral Gezi memes>

16. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
The whole world tracking #occupywallstreet
upheaval 17.09.2011

17. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
front pages newspapers 11-13 May 2011
front pages newspapers 16-18 May 2011

18. RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS
Front page coverage of Brazilian protests
by the Brazilian media
Front page coverage of the Arab Srping
by the Spanish media

19. SOME CHALLENGES
technopolitical
challenges
network-movements
challenges
political/institutional
challenges
*Developing a common
semiothics/semanthics/
language for trasnational
technopolitics.
*Working on new tools,
digital alphabetization, a
common technopolitical
culture(s), and a
‘decolonization’ of
technopolitics (Qzone
(China), VKontakte
(Russia), etc)
*Confronting big brother
and kill switch (State/market
control): net neutrality.
*Keep on producing
inclusivity and the
becoming-99% of the
movements
*Interwave and strengthen
trasnational networkmovements.
*Multilayer and multiscale
struggles: geoterritorycyberterritoy, global-local.
*Deepen institutional
changes at the trasnational
level (create new
trasnational institutions for
real democracy).
*Defy counterevolutionary
situations and forces (see
arab winter).
*Experiment on new
constituent-instituent
distributed processess (not
just destituent ones).

20. danke schön!