La digitalización de la protesta. Imagen-simultaneidad, imagen-continuidad e imagen-memoria en el Paro Nacional del Ecuador

Abstract

In the context of social struggles of the second decade of the 21st century, expressed and unleashed from the new communication technologies, the Ecuadorian National Strike in October 2019 is a case of interest to explore the uses of social networks by the mobilized citizen and indigenous movements. The purpose of this research is to analyze the forms of digital production and distribution of the images of three Ecuadorian groups during the Ecuadorian National Strike: Wambra, digital community medium; Fluxus Foto, a collective of photojournalists, and Primera Línea, an online curatorial work. In the present investigation, three stages can be identified. In the first stage, a first corpus was determined with the main activist strategies of visual creation and communication developed during the National Strike of Ecuador. In the second stage, three activist image concepts were configured that allude to temporal praxis and that were applied to the analysis of three active digital activist collectives during the strike: the image-simultaneity, the image-continuity and the image-memory. Finally, in the third and final stage, four categorical modalities were established that were useful to analyze each of the previous concepts of activist digital image: Collective enunciation; Plurimediality, Structural openness and Connectivity. These concepts have given us two fundamental conclusions: a) We have been able to demonstrate how time provides a greater ability to choose and work with images; b) The closer the image is to the present of its production, the greater number of visits and reactions.