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Comunicación y sociedad
versión impresa ISSN 0188-252X
Comun. soc vol.16 Guadalajara 2019 Epub 05-Jun-2020
https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v2019i0.7287
Tecnopolítica y ciudadanía digital
The collective cyber-activist action of “Las periodistas paramos” for the feminist strike of 8M in Spain
1Universidad de Málaga, España. Correos electrónicos: aimirissosa@uma.es, meligalarza@uma.es, andreacastro@ uma.es
This research analyzes the practices of cyber-activism of “Las periodistas paramos” as an action to support the feminist strike on March 8th, 2018. The case study describes the strategies in the digital space to make the protest visible. It is obtained, among the results, the construction of a gender identity, the support of women journalists to the strike, and a multiplier effect in other professional groups.
Keywords: Cyber-activism; digital communication; journalism; feminism; identity building
La investigación analiza las prácticas de ciberactivismo de “Las periodistas paramos” como acción de apoyo a la huelga feminista del 8 de marzo de 2018. A partir del estudio de caso se describen sus estrategias en el espacio digital para visibilizar la protesta. Entre los resultados se obtiene la construcción de una identidad de género, el apoyo de mujeres periodistas a la huelga y un efecto multiplicador en otros colectivos profesionales.
Palabras Clave: Ciberactivismo; comunicación digital; periodismo; feminismo; construcción de identidad
Introduction
The Internet has produced a significant change in all spheres of society. The irruption of digital platforms has put into question the current standards on a global scale (Gershon, 2016; Aruguete, 2017), so that “they break the unique sense of mass communication and reinforce the bidirectional symmetric model in which communication becomes universal, omnipresent and free” (Alonso, 2015, p. 91).
The use of virtual networks has favored the construction of a new “agora” where to share ideas and form opinions is a powerful tool for social change (De Aguilera, Sosa & De Aguilera, 2018; Mendes, Ringrose & Keller, 2018), an antagonistic space in which collective action reveals processes of autonomous social transformation (Sierra, 2018), despite the inequalities that generate in the citizenship the educational level, the conditions of access and the frequency of use of the technologies.
This research analyzes the cyber-activism practices of “Las periodistas paramos” (LPP) as a collective action for the feminist strike of March 8th, 2018 (8M). Specifically, the following objectives are pursued: a) to describe the dynamics of organization and coordination of LPP for the 8M strike; b) to analyze the LPP arguments developed in the manifesto; c) to determine the uses of digital communication tools for joining the strike; d) to establish the immediate and consecutive results of the LPP collective action.
Feminism, as a theoretical perspective and as a social movement, is taking hold with the result of intellectual contributions made from different knowledge and areas of knowledge in which the studies of women in communication are included (Galarza, Cobo & Esquembre, 2016). This research is ascribed to this paradigm, which interprets reality by focusing on the multiple social, political, economic and cultural disadvantages of women (Amorós, 1985).
In the theoretical construction on digital communication, there are several ways of naming this phenomenon of social configuration of information: global village (McLuhan, 1996), information society (Bell, 1991), knowledge society (Drucker, 1993), network society (Castells, 2001), that abandons the classic emission- reception models (Lasswell, 1948) and recognizes the “prosumer” (Gillmor, 2004) as a new communicative figure, in which the citizenry becomes a producer and consumer of information (Alonso, 2015). This mediamorphosis (Fidler, 1998) has caused changes in the productive routines of traditional media and, fundamentally, in the filter action exercised to select, rank or reject information (Wolf, 2005). The figure of the gatekeeper who exerted social control inside journalistic newsrooms (De León, 2008; White, 1950) and that collected the information “directly by people, speaking, interviewing, observing, etc.” (Parra, 2016, p. 226), has become in other actors and ways of managing communication.
For example, now algorithms are the gatekeepers of digital information in front of journalists who play this role in the environment of conventional media, opening the way to a more automated management of communication processes (De Aguilera & Casero, 2018, p. 5).
Recent research highlights the use of digital tools in today’s complex reality, with different purposes: political (Rodríguez, 2018), educational (Davis, 2018), corporate (Castillo & Smolak, 2013). These studies focus on the processes of symbolic identity construction, brand management and mediation, that are developed in the digital public sphere and that take place in social media, according to their potential (Liberos, 2013).
The scientific production on cyber-activism is less frequent from the perspective of gender and the feminist paradigm, even when digital tools also benefit the processes of collective identity construction (Carty, 2015), including gender. The current scenario of technological convergence accentuates the role of communication as a producer and reproducer of the social system, and therefore of the existing structural inequality.
The growing popularity of digital networks has been exploited by social movements and other forms of collective organization, as spaces for citizen recognition for the debate on issues of social inequality (Gomes & Colussi, 2016), and the channeling of protests “before the collapse of the traditional political system” (Sierra, 2018, p. 981). Thus, “social media are articulated as spaces where the exercise of power is redefined” (De Aguilera & Casero, 2018, p. 5).
The incorporation of technologies in collective action processes favors the diffusion and mobilization capacities of the protests. According to Gil (2012):
To materialize the message of the call in a social mobilization it is not enough exclusively with its diffusion, but it is required that the people who disseminate and receive the message participate in it, transforming the cyber participation in a “real” participation (p. 67).
The contemporary expressions of cyber-activism represent the online resistance to global power, in an informational context (Castells, 2012) whose logics of interconnection allow the adhesion of social actors who, despite being in different scenarios, share problems, ideologies and demands. However, only when the channeling of these claims becomes effective outside the digital space, there is real recognition by traditional political actors.
This is the case of the feminist strike that occurred on March 8th, 2018, with an unprecedented impact, mainly in Spain, within a transnational social movement, rooted in the glocal, which was helped by the collective action carried out by the Spanish LPP communicators.
With the purpose of strengthening the call for the feminist strike articulated in four fundamental axes: consumer, care, student and work, seven Spanish journalists decided to join efforts among the professionals of the union, to sensitize the public opinion about the inequalities suffered by women. Within the general framework that embodies the feminist movement, communicators made decisions from the organizational and discursive point of view “to be able to affect social change, through the promotion of their collective actions” (Ortiz, 2016, p. 172), inside and outside the virtual space.
Communication for the social transformation of feminism
In recent years the feminist movement has starred in the most massive mobilizations in Spain since the events around 15M. They include the “Freedom Train”, in 2014, in defense of the sexual and reproductive rights of women; the State March against Male Violence, in 2015, and the various calls for demonstrations on key dates such as March 8th, International Women’s Day.
Part of the success of these and other actions lies in the use of digital space as stage for action, not only at a glocal level, but also at a transnational level. This is demonstrated by campaigns carried out through social networks, such as the hashtag #MeToo, which emerged in the United States or the #NiUnaMenos in Argentina.
Feminist theory and practice, as a process of deconstruction of patriarchal hetero-designation (Valcárcel, 1994), has achieved international diffusion as a collective protest, with solid precedents in Anglo-American suffragism (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). The transnational dimension of feminism is far from being a strictly contemporary phenomenon, which allows us to affirm that as a social movement “it was already global before globalization” (Arias, 2008, p. 14).
Having established the epistemology of alternative communication or development (Gumucio & Tufte, 2006) it is possible to move towards a conceptual inclusion of feminism as a transnational social movement. Its communication is oriented to social change, both by its contents and by its organizational structures, in such a way that there is coherence between its discourse and its practice (Barranquero & Sáez, 2010).
In the classification carried out by Ortiz (2016) on social movements, the feminist movement is inserted in the tradition of European studies of the construction of collective identity (Melucci, 1994), as the paradigm of the new social movements. On the other hand, “collective action within a social movement constitutes a form of expression of their collective identity” (Arias, 2008, p. 18).
The identity of “being a woman” or “being a man” continues existing today, independently of other claimed identities (Butler, 1990; Haraway, 1991), and they are “discursive constructions that arise in societies structured on the basis of asymmetric relations between the sexes” (Vega, 2005, p. 133). If to the fact of being a woman is added other variables such as age, sexual orientation or guild membership, there is a specific political awareness, “and when significant human collectives acquire critical political awareness about the dominations they are subjected to, they are giving themselves the possibility of destroying them” (Cobo, 2005, p. 256).
Feminism has taken communicative action as one of its fundamental axes within its demands (Boix, Fraga & Sedón, 2001). However, the study on LPP cyber-activism cannot be considered within the investigations developed from different cyberfeminist currents, which investigate the deconstruction of identities from the interrelationships between women and machines (Núñez, 2011). Not even from the conceptualization of social cyberfeminism, in terms of digital literacy of women with the aim of contesting the virtual space to the patriarchy (De Miguel & Boix, 2002).
However, the articulation of a communicative strategy in a network, which uses public space to combat heteropatriarchal hegemony and call for political intervention in the streets, in order to promote a change in society, demonstrates the emergence of new forms of social cyberfeminism that are inescapable in the current paradigm of digital communication.
Methodology
This descriptive study is made from the combination of mixed analysis methods (Teddlie & Abbas, 2010) “that strengthen each other from their potential and at the same time complement each other’s limitations” (Hernández, Fernández & Baptista, 2010, p. 601).
The case study is used as a methodological design (Neiman & Quaranta, 2006) to analyze the practices of cyber-activism of LPP, as of its constitution on February 27th, 2018, as a collective action for the 8M feminist strike. This allowed exploring their discursive strategies; describe their dynamics of organization and internal coordination, as well as “the forms of protest and the institutional policies of recognition and autonomy in their singular manifestations, specific, real and concrete” (Sierra, 2018, p. 986).
The following data collection techniques were used:
Documentary bibliographic review, both for the preparation of the theoretical corpus and for identifying the LPP digital performance scenarios.
Semi-structured interviews with the seven LPP leaders: Ana Requena (eldiario.es), Marilín Gonzalo (Freelancer), Eva Belmonte (Fundación Civio), Marta Borráz (eldiario.es), Magda Bandera (eldiario.es), Mercedes Domenech (Mediapro, La Sexta), Amaya Larrañeta (20 minutos); under the purpose of knowing how this form of protest arises, the ways of organization, structure and management of the cyber-activist and offline collective action for the 8M strike.
Qualitative content analysis of the manifesto published and signed on the website, as a guiding document that collects the demands of the collective. From an analysis template (Table 1) the subcategories that comprise and operationalize the LPP discursive strategy were determined.
Table 1 Analytical category and subcategories: operationalization
LPP Manifesto | |||
Category: Argumentary | |||
Subcategories | Operationalization | ||
Collective actor |
Women/ Communicators |
Women journalists/Feminist collective/Others | |
Identity/ recognition policy |
Union | Explicit/underlying | |
Gender | |||
Feminist | |||
Goals | Identity | Guilds | |
Of genre | |||
Of social change | |||
Social conflict |
Structural inequality between men and women |
Cultural | Economic |
Social | Politics | ||
Media representation | Other | ||
Access to the media | |||
Complaints | Workplace, sexual and/or gender-based harassment | ||
Lack of parity | |||
Male violence | |||
Treatment in the media the image of women and gender violence | |||
Unequal working conditions for men and women |
Stewardship | ||
Type of contract | |||
Salario | |||
Professional category | |||
Claims | Equality in terms of: | Salary | Representation |
Access to management positions | Participation | ||
Employment stability | Conciliation | ||
Spaces free of violence | |||
Worthy treatment of the image of women in the media | |||
Tools for
awareness/ mobilization |
Signature of the manifest |
Total signatories | |
Adhesion to the strike |
Reading the manifesto | ||
Rhetoric | Inclusive/exclusive | ||
Transversal/specific | |||
Guild/feminist |
Source: The authors.
Analysis of mixed content of the LPP web architecture. Table 2 lists the elements that were taken into account for the analysis:
Table 2 Web architecture
Las Periodistas Paramos | |||
Number of entries: | Last entry: | ||
Identification of the issuer | Brand | Favicona | |
First name | Bedlineb | ||
About us? | |||
Message Objectives | Statement of objectives/intentions | ||
FAQ | |||
Navigation | Static Menu | Levels of the menu | |
Side sections | |||
Usability | Writing style | ||
Sections | Web map | Contact | More information |
Chat | Social Networks | Who are we? | |
PressRoom | Other sections | ||
Web/Blog | Predominates Image | ||
Design | Slider | Gallery | Ranking |
Chat | Esthetic | Others | |
Comments |
a. It is an icon associated with a web that serves to identify it visually in the navigation bar or favorites, as well as in other locations, depending on the browser used. Its name comes from the term “favorite icon”.
b. Descriptive phrase or concept used in the areas of marketing and advertising, which expresses the proposal of the brand or describes its activity. Similar terms such as claim, bassline, endline or tagline are also used.
Source: The authors.
The study of LPP’s digital communication included the review of social networks (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), the website itself and Google searches on the collective. The analysis was carried out through different online measurement tools: Google Trends, to determine the interest generated by LPP at a general level through its Google search volume; Jetpack, for the measurement of web traffic; Facebook Insights, to obtain the data about audience profile, visits, scope and likes the LPP Facebook fanpage; Hashtagify, to monitor the hashtag #LasPeriodistasParamos on Twitter, know its use, semantic variations, top influencers, derivative hashtags, etc. These data were complemented with the Trending Topics monitoring, carried out by Trendinalia and Trendogate.
With the Webstagram and Hashtagify tools, the Instagram publications that contain the main hashtag were analyzed to know the number of publications, semantic variations and related hashtags.
Results
For the construction of the LPP action, organizational and coordination dynamics were generated as a result of the commitment of seven feminist journalists. First, they called 30 journalists through an e-mail to meet on February 27th. More than 40 attended the meeting (A. Requena, personal communication, July 30th, 2018). Right there “we agreed on a hashtag and a manifesto and agreed on the minimum points ... We coordinated through a Telegram group that from the next morning was adding and adding journalists in a dizzying way” (M. Borraz, personal communication, August 7th, 2018).
The meeting decided to create a blog because they needed a place to publish the manifesto urgently: “The tools were falling short; we overflowed at every step with the participation that grew like foam” (E. Belmonte, personal communication, August 20th, 2018), they carried out a verification of the signatures of the manifesto and anticipated the possible resistance to their speech and action since. They detected “a lot of trolls trying to sneak false names, for example” (E. Belmonte, personal communication, August 20th, 2018). “They decided that reading the manifesto “had to be choral” (A. Larrañeta, personal communication, July 29th, 2018).
During the organizational process, some tensions were generated in the collective. Internally, the most significant was, on the one hand, the management of communication in the Telegram group, given that they should minimize potential conflicts and redirect the debate to avoid dispersion of the issues. On the other hand, the collective positioning with respect to one of the axes of the call to strike: if the consumer strike could affect the consumption of networks.
There I stood and said: “No, this has to be considered as a war, as a struggle”. You’re not going to say “I’m not going to use the weapons”. Social networks were fundamental to connect us so quickly; otherwise we could not have done anything. (M. Gonzalo, personal communication, July 26th, 2018).
In the external sphere, the tensions became concrete in attempts of political profitability of the collective action of parties and unions; and media manipulation through political discredit and televised confrontation.
Argumentary developed in the manifesto
One of the essential components of LPP’s collective action is the manifesto in which “the keys to the pending challenges for gender equality in information and in the sector” were expressed (A. Larrañeta, personal communication, July 29th, 2018).
From the first lines of text the collective actor representing the protest is established: “Women journalists from dozens of media and communication agencies, press offices, and, in general, media workers and journalistic companies” (Las Periodistas Paramos, 2018, paragraph 1); as well as the central objective of the action: to support the feminist strike called for March 8th, 2018.
The manifesto evidences the construction of a collective actor based on a gender and union identity, being women and communicators, that is not declared explicitly feminist, to achieve a consolidation of the repertoires of action at the moment of adhesion to the strike, by signing the document.
Supported by more than 8 000 women and translated into 11 official and co-official languages, the text echoes a social problem that affects all women and that the feminist movement itself has denounced for decades: structural inequality. This conflict is expressed in the manifesto through the complaints made by the collective about the existence in their labor ecosystem of sexism, precariousness, insecurity, wage gap, glass ceiling, sexual harassment, partial vision of the media, reification and stereotyping of the image of women (Las periodistas paramos, 2018).
Hence, the demands contained in the document are addressed to the media and journalistic companies, and claim the right to salary transparency, to occupy positions of power and responsibility, to the freelance and autonomous labor stability, to a real conciliation that allows the sharing of tasks in terms of equality, to a professional practice free of sexual and labor harassment, to balance the presence of women in public spaces of opinion, and to a fair and objective approach in the story that the media build, in which the multiple forms of sexist violence are not reproduced (Las periodistas paramos, 2018).
In the text, the content of the manifesto shows a strong component of vindication of the rights of the professionals of the journalistic sector (Las periodistas paramos, 2018, paragraph 11). The text also pursues conscious and mobilizing ends, which go beyond the union limits when it urges “the audience and readers to be accomplices” of their demands (Las periodistas paramos, 2018, paragraph 11).
In the manifesto, the act of reading the text of the 8M in Madrid and Barcelona is summoned and its replica is encouraged in other cities. In this way, the initiative moves the activism from the digital sphere to the physical space, with the purpose of materializing the main objective of the collective action: to support the feminist strike.
Therefore, there is an identification with the demands of the feminist movement, through a transversal, inclusive and guild-oriented rhetoric. The argument is clear of partisan and union constraints and abandons the individual professional ideologies to build a joint programmatic document that served “to raise your voice and say ‘enough’” (M. Doménech, personal communication, August 9th, 2018).
Cyber-activism strategy
The basis of LPP’s cyber-activism strategy can be found on the web, a flat architecture site with 31 entries, updated on March 7th, 2018. The web presents a blog structure and textual basis, functional, but without great aesthetic boasts: “I wish I had time to do something more beautiful and clearer” (E. Belmonte, personal communication, August 20th, 2017).
The home page includes favicon, own name and brand and bedline, in addition to the section “Who are we?”. The brand is the feminist symbol with a fist holding a microphone/pen and the hashtag #lasperiodistasparamos. The body of the page is the manifesto, the adhesion form and the list of signatories after verification by the data group (M. Gonzalo, personal communication, July 26th, 2018). The “FAQ” (frequently asked questions) section defines the LPP identity and makes explicit its positioning, thus trying to reduce distrust towards the action. Other sections are also included: “The woman journalists stop and we are not the only ones”, “Friendly initiatives”, “The manifesto in other languages” and “Contact”.
Another fundamental pillar of LPP’s cyber-activism strategy was the use of social networks. In a participatory manner, it was agreed that the strategy would be developed differently on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Only one LPP account was created on Facebook, given its flexibility to publish audiovisual material, since on Twitter and Instagram the feed is dynamic, and locating specific publications is more difficult.
On Twitter they operated through the personal profiles of the signatory journalists, and took advantage of their status as privileged broadcasters, their popularity and the networks they had. In this way, the centralization of communication in a single profile was avoided, and the hashtag #LasPeriodistasParamos was used as a conversation catalyst.
Between the 2nd and the 7th of March, they used several hashtags in a supplementary way in reference to the points of the manifesto: #BrechaSalarial, #TechodeCristal, #precariedad, #acoso, #ninguneo, #corresponsabilidad and #MiradaParcial. On Instagram some users followed the same scheme and used the hashtags used on Twitter.
In the fanpage, created on March 6th, 2018, LPP are presented as a group of journalists united to defend their rights on 8M. The page has 1 605 likes, 1 690 followers, and a volume of 103 photos, 94 of them from the strike. The publications show the use of hashtags referring to feminism and the strike (#8m, #HuelgaFeminista, #PrimaveraFeminista ...), and information on adherence to the manifesto of collectives such as correspondents, or journalists of Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), Mediaset, Huffington Post, among others. It includes publications on gender perspective or initiatives of women communication professionals. The only event is the reading of the manifesto in Callao.
On Twitter, between March 1st and 9th, they became Trending Topic #LasPeriodistasParamos and other derived labels, such as the name of journalists Ana Rosa Quintana, who cancelled her program on the same 8M (Table 3). Also, on March 8th #LasPeriodistasParamos was also a trend in several points of the United States.
Table 3 Trending topic (TT) achieved by LPP between March 1st And 9th
TT reached by LPP between March 1st and 9th, 2018 | |||
Day | Trending Topic | Hours | Region |
March 1st | #LasPeriodistasParamos | 5:55 | Spain |
#LasPeriodistasParamos | 5:10 | Worldwide | |
March 2nd | #LasPeriodistasParamos | 8:10 | Spain |
March 2rd | #LasPeriodistasParamos | 7:55 | Spain |
#TechodeCristal | 8:20 | Spain | |
#TechodeCristal | 5:00 | Worldwide | |
March 4th | #TechodeCristal | 8:15 | Spain |
#precariedad | 7:10 | Spain | |
March 5th | #ninguneo | 6:30 | Spain |
#EnRTVElasmujeresparamos | 1:10 | Spain | |
March 6th | #corresponsabilidad | 7:45 | Spain |
March 7th | #MiradaParcial | 3:35 | Spain |
#TrabajadorasdeRTVE | 4:00 | Spain | |
March 8th | #LasPeriodistasParamos | 3:10 | Spain |
#LasPeriodistasParamos | 1:45 | Worldwide | |
Ana Rosa Quintana | 7:15 | Spain | |
Callao | 2:00 | Spain |
Source: The authors with data from Trendinalia.
The main contributor to the hashtag by countries was Spain, although its use was transnational with presence in countries such as Italy or Mexico. The related hashtags are linked to the strike and feminism (#Huelga8deMarzo, #8MHuelgaFeminista, #8M). Part of the success on Twitter is derived from the influencers that used the hashtag.2
On Instagram the use of #LasPeriodistasParamos was reduced to 2 296 posts until August 2018 and the hash tags were also linked to 8M (#Huelgafeminista8M, #8M).
From a qualitative perspective, it can be seen that the digital strategy of the LPP was articulated in two axes. First, the construction of the discourse focused on: a clear identification of the issuer in the messages, either through the leaders themselves or communicators who joined the initiative; the maintenance of the LPP brand through the use of the main hashtag and links to the manifesto to promote its signature; the elaboration of inclusive and transversal messages to generate professional identification and claim from the perspective of being women; and the construction of an argument that could be replicated without generating noise about the message of adhesion to the strike.
Second, the dissemination of collective action that includes: the use of generalist digital media in which the group of women communicators has a large presence; the permanent emission of contents, fostered by the multiple participants in the action; the continuous update on the increase of signatures of the manifesto and the incorporation of different collectives to the strike. This allowed a permanence of the topic in the social network feed, which translated into great visibility, expansion of the initiative and an increase in its mobilizing capacity.
Immediate and consecutive results of LLP
The collective action built by Spanish women journalists had an impact that exceeded their initial objectives. The data obtained from the tools analyzed corroborate the success of the initiative in the short and medium term.
The website accumulates 100 218 visits, 95% corresponding to March, which make the homepage the most viewed page (89.9%). The visits come mainly from Spain, but there are transnational contributions. Traffic sources include Twitter (34%), Facebook (7.6%), search engines and digital newspapers. The 8M fanpage had 1 038 followers, which increased to 1 424 on June 6th. The highest reach and visit figures coincide with the strike and the assembly. The followers are mainly women (86%) who disseminate content, which compensates for the reach by sex (49% of men).
In order to determine the interest that LPP generated in the digital space, the Google searches of “las periodistas paramos”, were monitored, which monopolizes more results and its variation “lasperiodistasparamos”. The searches were located in Spain and its greatest popularity took place on the eve of the strike and the day of the assembly (Figure 1).
![](/img/revistas/comso/v16//0188-252X-comso-16-e7287-gf4.gif)
Source: The authors with data from Google Trends.
Figure 1 Searches For “Las Periodistas Paramos” And “Lasperiodistasparamos”
Another of the most relevant results is the adherence to the manifesto: 8 200 signatures in eight days (E. Belmonte, personal communication, August 20th, 2017) (Figure 2).
The Federation of Journalists’ Unions (FeSP for its acronym in Spanish) issued two public statements in support of the 8M Feminist Strike. In the second, they join the LPP and make the claims their own (L. Fernández, personal communication, August 27tth, 2018).
At a national level, top-rated programs such as those of Ana Rosa Quintana and María Casado were canceled, and in others, presenters were replaced, such as Susanna Griso, Pepa Bueno or Ángels Barceló. Mara Torres, of the program La 2 Noticias, was obliged to do minimal services, communicated it at the beginning of the broadcast and made a monographic and feminist program (“Mara Torres: La 2 Noticias”, 2018). In media such as Público or La Sexta, where for the first time a man presented La Sexta Noticias, all the editors supported the strike; in Cadena Ser no female voice came on the air. Women from media such as El Confidencial, El Diario, La Marea, journalists from Congress or foreign correspondents also joined LPP.
In spaces such as El Intermedio, La Marea or Playground, posts were not replaced so that the absence of women was noticed (Figure 3). In the regional media the follow-up was important, for example, in RTVA Canal Sur went black for a few hours (L. Fernández, personal communication, August 27th, 2018). The reading of the manifesto in Callao was massive, as well as in the other cities where it was held.
![](/img/revistas/comso/v16//0188-252X-comso-16-e7287-gf6.gif)
Source: The authors with data from Twitter.
Figure 3 Repercussion on Twitter of the absence of women in the media
Among the most recognized LPP’s results by its leaders are the creation of women’s networks by regions, as is the case of the Spanish correspondents in Brussels and the assembly, which was also Trending Topic in Spain and worldwide.
Discussion and conclusions
Collective phenomena and social movements have found dynamic environments in digital networks (Ortiz, 2016) for the development of communicative strategies and emerging forms of digital activism that “appear as a result of the general logic of deployment of capitalism and its process of accumulation by dispossession” (Sierra, 2018, p. 982).
According to Reguillo (2017), the initiatives that through technopolitics break the pre-established schemes and challenge the dominant discourses (Sierra & Gravante, 2017), have not only changed the way of understanding phenomena, but also construct alternative accounts in a participatory and horizontal way, in order to stimulate awareness and social change (Freire, 2002).
The current feminist movement, which spins its discourse with anticapitalism and the dispossession of resources by women, is reflected in the LPP manifesto, even though the rhetoric of the text, inclusive and transversal, shows an intentional distancing from the classic feminist concepts, and committed to positions recognizable and acceptable to women communicators, regardless of their ideological affiliation. In fact, it cannot be affirmed that the collective presents a feminist identity, despite the fact that some of its leaders believe it, even considering that “it is one of the fundamental achievements” (A. Larrañeta, personal communication, July 29th, 2018).
LLP’s cyber activist collective action places the community of women journalists at the center of the political debate on the need to establish relationships and conditions in terms of equality, in a sector that suffers gender discrimination, inside and outside the newsrooms. In this debate, the formulation of social strategies and policies that help men develop new non-patriarchal interests (Bonino, 2003), and favor their willingness to build and be built on equality with women will be fundamental.
The strategy of not creating corporate accounts, except on Facebook, simplified the management of online communication and strengthened the sense of collectivity of the initiative. It was the journalists who selfmanaged their activity as prescribers of the action, since no discursive guidelines were enunciated, except for the hashtag, which is linked to the call for strike of 8M and feminism as a social movement.
Individually, the journalists involved reproduced the filter function exercised by the gatekeepers of yesteryear (White, 1950) to select, rank or reject the information (Parra, 2016; Wolf, 2005) on the LPP collective action, which was disseminated in social networks, and even in some traditional media.
The use of digital tools favored the massive diffusion of LPP, adherence to the manifesto and the transnational character that the initiative reached. However, we cannot speak of a consolidation and a real political recognition of the action, without taking into account the response it generated in the physical space, with an unprecedented mobilization of female communicators in Spain.
The social construction of the gender, in addition to being guildoriented, has been determinant in LPP in terms of sorority (Lagarde, 2014) and of pact among women (Posada, 2000). This research confirms the existence in the studied group of an identity in these two aspects: gender and union, built from a network communicative strategy, which manages to impact the traditional public sphere with the mobilization in the streets, and stands as genuine action of the repertoire of contemporary social cyberfeminism.
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2 Such as Ana Pastor (@anapastor), El País (@el_pais), Mónica Carrillo (@MonicaCarrillo), Pedro Sánchez (@sanchezcastejon), Ana Rosa Quintana (@anarosaq), Público (@publico_es), Pepa Bueno (@PepaBueno), Rosa María Artal (@rosamariaartal), La Marea (@lamarea_com) or Esther Palomera (@estherpalomera).
How to cite:
Sosa Valcarcel, A., Galarza Fernández, E. & Castro-Martinez, A. (2019). The collective cyber-activist action of “Las periodistas paramos” for the feminist strike of 8M in Spain. Comunicación y Sociedad, e7287. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32870/cys.v2019i0.7287
Received: September 04, 2018; Accepted: January 24, 2019