Artivism plus Grassroots. Study of the case: The Municipal Campaign of Manuela Carmena and Ahora Madrid

Abstract

The object of the present study is the case study: "Artivism plus Grassroots", performed in the election campaign of Manuela Carmena during Municipal Elections of Madrid in 2015, where these two terms merged, art and citizen participation, innovating in political communication as has never been seen before in Spain. Also, in this context, there will be delving into the campaign of the political party Ahora Madrid, to which the aforementioned candidate is affiliated. It is revealing to account for the use of digital platforms as communication tools by the new parties, in this case Ahora Madrid, during the elections, to identify the activity generated therein and its character and, likewise, to observe whether they promoted the horizontal and bidirectional communication characteristic of this environment 2.0. For Manuel Castells (2012) in the past two decades there was a revolutionary transformation in terms of technology and organization of the socialized communication. "Said transformation can be defined as the shift from masses communication to self-communication of masses" (p.23). A relevant issue to be developed in this article. And in all this environment of changes in communication it is noteworthy that in the political behaviour of Spanish there is a before and an after since the 15M movement. The professor Antonio Gutiérrez-Rubí (2011) is worth mentioning, who considers the resurgence of a new public space is observed as a consequence of the use of social networks and Internet for the civic action. This entails "the loss of the exclusive privilege of the political action by politicians" and he adds "they must have seen that it is possible to organize politically without them; to communicate in an efficacious manner without mediatic intermediation or against some myopias; and to create contents of value