ABSTRACT
The Indignados movement is, like most movements nowadays, active both in the online and the offline spheres (Castillo Esparcia et al. 2013). However, as highlighted by several scholars (García-Jiménez, Zamora-Medina, and Martínez-Fernández 2014; Rovisco 2016), the relationship between the online and the offline is a complex process: ‘The protest camps in Puerta del Sol and several other squares across the country cannot, however, be understood as simple transpositions onto public spaces of practices first established on the web’ (Gerbaudo 2012: 96). As mentioned in Chapter 4, the Indignados movement contains several horizontal elements, similarly to many social movements since the Battle of Seattle in 1999 (protests against the World Trade Organisation), with a higher focus on networks and horizontality. However, whilst Chapter 4 showed how offline practices construct movement unity in the visceral, we must also engage with the online sphere. Even though the Indignados are similar to many social movements of the past, the advent of social media is a true novelty. Therefore, the question informing this chapter is how unity is created online, and the role of the visceral therein.
