Media Made My Day: When a Tweet can change everyting

Social networks are the best way to let people know your thoughts in a simple, easy, fast and multitudinous way. In just one click, thousands of people can read what you are talking about, no matter about the geographical barriers, sex, gender, age or social status. It is quite like a widespread freedom of speech. But sometimes it can cost you dearly.

Twitter has been in a red-hot these days in Spain. Due to the fateful accident of the Germanwings plane in the French Alps (Click HERE for more information in CNN) in its way from Barcelona to Düsseldorf, some people decided to write down their opinions aboutit in less than 140 characters. The freedom of speech dilemma comes when these tweets are offensive, far away from ethical and disrespectful for the people affected: German, French and, above all, Catalan people. Here you can see some of them:

@pvansix: So, minus 42 Catalans.

@AxelGOD: 42 death Catalans it's not enough for me

@pianelo: C'mon, don't make a scene, in that plane there were Catalans, not humans.

@JaviRcd99: The plane accident sounds a good idea to me if there were Catalans inside

@__mancuso: Plane full of Catalans and German people has crashed in France. #WinWinWin

The Spain and Catalan Governments decided to act against this users - after a Twitter request from other citizens - and ow the first one has been arrested (@pianelo). But these anti-Catalan (and German and French) tweets were not the only ones that caused controversy in the peninsula. After the accident, the usual broadcasted television programs were stopped for the news bulletin, where they were explaining all the details about the catastrophe. Some part of the population were angry at that change of the programming schedule because the dating show Hombres y Mujeres y Viceversa (MYHYV) (Click HERE for the english information about this show) was not being broadcasted. Comments like these were written (with all the possible spelling mistakes):

@tupaALCALA: Bfff, just broadcast #MYHYV, I don't care about what happened in France. I want my guuuuys!

@katino_98: Okay, it's so sad all this about the plane and stuff, okay? But what the hell, aren't you going to broadcast #myhyv? That's so bad Telecinco!

@MiriVzq98: F*ck God, they are going to remove #myhyv because of this from France, I don't care at all about it!

@oscarg23_: I find terrible that they don't broadcast @myhyv for an accident, it's not my fault that they are stupid and have crashed!

@Miguel_Lara_: I hope that one plane crashes in the house of the idiot that has removed the programme #myhyv

@GuillEDM_:If the plane has had an accident it must because its own fault xDDD Just show #myhyv, c'mon!

After this introduction of the facts, I want to focus to what I really wanted to explain. Following these tweets about the dating show, another part of the Spanish population started to react. They have joined forces and they've decided to create a platform to delete the program from the television schedule. I would dare to guess that these people who started the campaign didn't like the show before the events, but they just decided to act in a moment where the context was totally favorable for them. We can talk about that as Cass Sunstein does: we are in front of a group polarization. Groups of people will end up thinking the same that they thought before, but in an extreme form. Although a huge part of the population is always against these kinds of programs, this crisis has just appeared now in a massive way, because some strong reason has happened to disapprove them even more.

So, we have no doubt that nowadays, everyone can have a word into bigger affairs as, in this case, the mass media. TeleCinco is one of the most important television channel in Spain, operated by the big communication group Mediaset España Comunicación owned by Silvio Berlusconi, and which has been the leader of audience for so many years in the country. The program in question (MYHYV) has almost one million daily viewers (approx. 13'6% of audience share), leading a huge fanaticism. But, in the Internet world, even a single person can start a movement against an important mass media like this, recruiting thousands of people from all over the country in just some minutes. This petition is almost achieving its 150.000 votes needed through the website Change.org, a corporation legally constituted as a legal person. Civic, reformist, social and, generally, protest petitions are admitted.

In this event we can totally appreciate a public forum doctrine where speakers have an access to a wide array of people. It's easier and faster to start a movement through Internet than in "real" life. What is more, this public forum also allows them to have an access to, for instance, specific institutions with whom they have a complaint. I can imagine that it was more difficult before to have access to the TV studio and its owners.

Offtimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow. This quote of the American writer George R.R Martin can describe very well what is Internet about. As well as the offensive tweets were spread all over the country in just a few minutes, it has happened the same with this campaign. From a single guy in his own house - Abel Romeo Cariñena - to all the houses of Spain (as well as they have access). And, what is more, to the TV channel itself. And all this movement occurred due to the use of the social network Twitter, a different device that has apparently nothing to do with television. We can all agree that nowadays all the media is connected; every movement in one new media can affect all the other ones.

This is only a small example about what the convergence of media is. As Henry Jenkins wrote in Convergence Culture (2008), it is undeniable that old and new media collide and the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer can interact in unpredictable ways. In the new media, the participatory culture leads the process. The new consumers are active, socially connected and, above all in this case, they produce a noisy and public work.

In this online democracy everyone has his or her opinion. In the moment, there's a pitched battle on Twitter between the people who loves the show and the people who's against it. All this opinions affect directly to the TV program and, therefore, to its channel. Although that, in my opinion, it's not probably that they will annul the dating show - because of the big audience that it has and how my country works, unfortunately -, there's been indeed an echo that, leaded in the good way, can have negative effects for the show, as it happened with the arrested catalanophobics men after that the citizens asked to the Official Police's Twitter to do something about it.

A fortunate result of shared experiences is that people see each other as fellow citizens (even if they don't have much in common with one another) with shared concerns and intentions; the collaborative spirit grows and we can find it in the knowledge or even fan community. When it leads to cooperative projects that can change an aspect of the society or the world into a better situation, as in my opinion would be this particular case, it is clear that the power of the new generative media is undoubtedly important in our new personal, social or political life. As Henry Jenkins says in the book previously mentioned: just imagine that fans and players begin to focus their energies toward solving civic and political problems!

We, the users and consumers, have the real power nowadays. The last word can be ours. The era of the kingdom of the sovereign mass media and producers is finishing. In this online world, everyone is the same: King, nobles, plebeians or even buffoons.