Elias Said-Hung, PhD. Universidad del Norte Social Media as Spaces for Mobilization and Citizen Participation in Venezuela Elias Said-Hung, PhD. Universidad del Norte Jorge Valencia Cobos, Mg. Universidad del Norte

Communicative “Ambient”, which is characterized by the incorporation and advances of 2.0 tools in the transit of information produced by the exponential growth of the participants in the production of news, information, and knowledge (Casero-Ripollés and Feenstra 2012; González and Ramos 2013; Hermida 2010; Said et al. 2012). Social networks have contributed to new scenes of citizen participation to facilitate interaction, the broadcasting of content and the structure of smart mobs (Lasorsa et al., 2011; Murthy 2011 and Effing et al., 2011)

The State as Communicator in Venezuela Constant tension between media and president Chavez since 1999. Media have to defend the State per se given the character of the public good. Law on Social Responsibility on Radio and Television (LRS): 2005 and 2010. ¨mixed-authoritative¨ model. State, via political and administrative controls, tended to cordon off pluralism and the diversity of information and opinion exposed by the accessed channels of communication in Venezuela. RCTV (2006), Globovision (2014), NTN24 (2014)… other cases.

Protest in Venezuela, 2014 Series of protests were led by students who showed their discontent prior to the deterioration of the quality of life and the violation of civil rights in Venezuela: 42 people were killed 873 people were injured 3,120 people were arrested More than 3,400 people were incarcerated the users of social networks, in particular Twitter, intensively used this type of resource to spread information about these events.

What we are looking for? Analyzes the practice of mobilization in the context of social conflict via social networks, during the protests in Venezuela at the beginning of 2014 as a case study

Questions that we tried to get answer… What is the profile of users that actively participated in the information coverage of these events. What principal features characterized the social mobilization exercised by these users. What was the structure of the Tweets that generated the greater level of social mobilization during the protests used as a case study. Was there a relationship between the information flows on Twitter and the news agenda published using the media that addressed these facts?

How we did it? The study comprised part of a mixed perspective of research. A random sample of 2,771 tweets, 1,957 users and 1,984 published news articles via traditional media (95% confidence +/- 2 error). We analyzed user profiles, the features that characterize social mobilization, the structure of the Tweets that generated the greatest mobilization, and the possible relationship between the information flows and the news generated by the users of this social network and the media that covered these events.

Method analysis First stage of analysis: Second stage of the analysis: Two units of analysis were examined: 1) the User that actively participated via the social network and 2) the Message spread by these users. #SOSVenezuela (7,732,063 messages) AND #PRAYFORVENEZUELA (2,877,842 Tweets). Data collected: February 13 and March 12, 2014. Second stage of the analysis: News agenda and the news coverage that was recorded via communication during the analysis period for this project. Third stage of the analysis: Content analysis of the Tweets and previously identified news.

3 years register from Twitter Profile of Users Linked to the Student Protests of Venezuela 3 years register from Twitter “everyday users” who do not have a high network of contacts because they possess circles of influence of relatively small size but have a high impact reach via Twitter Male The majority of users analyzer, presented a direct link with the events in Venezuela

Social Mobilization of Analyzed Users Messages that directly mention the occurring events during different student protests in which users directly produced Tweets of their criticisms and/or positions about these facts Three classes of messages: Social or general messages, which are marked as favorites by analyzed users, in which they refer to cultural and/or political personalities in addition to related content with calls for peace in Venezuela. Messages that advocate the resolution of existing social conflict or the development of related actions with these events during the study period. These types of messages concentrate on the answered Tweets by the analyzed users.

Regarding the type of messages, the mobilization of analyzed users via Twitter presented features that distinctly differentiated between replied messages versus messages marked as favorites The greatest mobilization was observed in Tweets that uniquely showed links or URLs of content related to the protests. In the case of Tweets marked as favorites, the messages that only contained text generated the greatest mobilization. Tweets that are replies, the the communicated and announcements related to the analyzed events generate the greatest mobilization Tweets marked as favorites generated the greatest mobilization (µ=703), compared with the Tweets that were answered (µ=208). Tweets that are marked as favorites, the announcements concentrate the most weight during Tweets with insults have less weight of mobilization

Replied Tweets and Tweets marked as favorites that did not present an opposing position were Tweets that generated the greatest mobilization around the student protests during the period of study Tweets with messages with positive attitudes were Tweets that had the greatest impact, in the case of the Tweets marked as favorites, whereas in the case of the replied Tweets, a distinct influence of the attitude is not observed. Tweets with a mixed (text + multimedia) and a text format have a greater mobilization

News Agenda versus Mobilization of Users on Twitter Twitter covered the news flow more extensively than Venezuela’s existing media during the study period

Conclusions Social networks, such as Twitter in our case, promote of new forms of smart mobs, from citizen participation oriented to the spreading of content and information on the basis of users who participated in the social diffusion of student protests in Venezuela during 2014 The emergence of unconventional political participation, at least in the political and social Venezuelan scene, via flexible networks, which are decentralized and without identified leaders who politically intervened during the achievement of the protests on Twitter A reorganization of the “Communication Ambient” in Venezuela that demands the integration of Twitter and other social networks has occurred in favor of the debates of topics of common interest by citizens of this country. The impact by Twitter on the construction of links between analyzed users

Thanks… Elias Said Hung, PhD. Email: saide@uninorte.edu.co https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Elias_Said_Hung Jorge Valencia Cobos, Mg. Email: javalenciac@uninorte.edu.co Thanks…