The online Empowerment and Disinformation workshops of the Datapolitik Observatory promote the training and empowerment of vulnerable groups, journalists and the general public, in the understanding of scientific mechanisms of dissemination of information and formation of public opinion online, as an element essential for the improvement of democratic life.

Social media networks have played a role in democratizing the public sphere. In this sense, they are allowing non-normative identities and non-hegemonic discourses to create their own communication spaces for learning and development. But not only that purpose: they are also a space that gives access to citizenship as a whole in the expression and amplification of public opinions on current and general interest issues that can have a real impact on people's lives and societies beyond the digital realm. However, social media are also spaces crossed by conflicts. Within the scope of this project, two aspects are of particular interest. The first is the evidence that reactionary social groups use social networks to exert digital violence that aims to deny the right to free expression in equal opportunities to minority and vulnerable social groups, from women to ethnic and racial minorities to LGTBI people. . The second is the realization that the initial democratizing potential of social media in the context of public communication is being limited by the growing commercial purpose that guides the decisions of the platform owners.

The workshops

Se dirigen a personas, preferentemente racializadas, que sean activistas participantes en colectivos, asociaciones o instituciones antirracistas de la provincia de Barcelona, sin perjuicio de incluir también a personas activistas de otros grupos que puedan ver vulnerabilizado su derecho a participar en la esfera pública (por ejemplo, mujeres, personas homosexuales, personas trans o no binarias, etc.). El proyecto parte de una mirada interseccional.

The project is aimed at individuals, preferably from racialized backgrounds, who are activists participating in anti-racist collectives, associations, or institutions in the province of Barcelona, without excluding activists from other groups who may have their right to participate in the public sphere compromised (e.g., women, LGBTQ+ individuals, transgender or non-binary individuals, etc.). The project adopts an intersectional approach.

The social impact of the projec

Por una parte, se prevé crear conocimiento de manera conjunta entre personas investigadoras y activistas antirracistas. Por otra, de esta experiencia se pretende extraer una nueva remesa de prácticas digitales actualizadas y de herramientas analíticas acordes al estudio del impacto de estas prácticas que pueda resultar útil a cualquier movimiento social de base democrática y emancipadora.

On the one hand, the project aims to collaboratively generate knowledge between both researchers and anti-racist activists. On the other hand, aims to extract a new set of updated digital practices and analytical tools from this experience, consistent with the impact study of these practices that could be useful for any grassroots democratic and emancipatory social movement

The specific objectives

1. To strengthen and promote the creation of new channels of collaboration between researchers and social activists, particularly from anti-racist movements.
2. To make available to anti-racist activists a theoretical-interpretive framework of the current Spanish and Catalan public sphere, with special emphasis on the role played by social media platforms, their limits and  opportunities they present for public advocacy.
3. To facilitate the sharing and creation of jointly situated knowledge among activists and researchers on the media practices that can best increase the public impact of anti-racist movements and, potentially, any democratic and emancipatory grassroots movement.
4. To produce a set of alternative analytical tools to commercial ones that can be useful to social movements to achieve their objectives and that can be developed by researchers in the short term.

The workshops are conducted with the support of the Barcelona Provincial Council