With so many people connected in so many places, the future will have the most active, open and globalized civil society the world has ever known.
Today we already have 5000 million Internet connections. As people have more than one device (phone, tablet, computer, etc.) connected that number represents something more than 2000 million users according to experts.
It is expected that in the next five years the number of connections to the network will at least double and that in the following decade we will get some 7,000 million people connected to the network.
This process has led some analysts to describe the scenario for modern political action as a “virtual public square”, where increasingly informed citizens discuss priorities and social problems. It is an interesting definition because it seems to recreate the “Athens Square”, the original locus for citizen participation in ancient Greece politics.
That seems to be the direction in which millions of self-called people move through social networks around the planet. From the protests against Globalization, against the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank at the end of the 20th century to the demonstrations in the Arab world at the beginning of 2011, the mobilizations of the outraged Europeans and Americans of 2011 and 2012, including the massive demonstrations in Brazil, Chile, Argentina or Peru in 2013. In an unprecedented event, the protests were spontaneously organized without defined personal or political leadership.
In October 2012, for example, using social networks to coordinate and communicate, protesters gathered against the global crisis on the same day in 950 cities in 82 countries. It is, perhaps, the first protest of a truly global and collective nature.
These movements have multiplied and expanded in recent years, reaching greater proportions and great intensity. How to channel that energy positively using new technologies to modernize democratic institutions?
