MOBILE DEMOCRACY: TEXT MESSAGES, VOTER TURNOUT AND THE 2004 SPANISH GENERAL ELECTION

Abstract

Mobile phones have the potential to foster political mobilisation. Like the Internet, mobile phones facilitate communication and rapid access to information. Compared to the Internet, however, mobile phone diffusion has reached a larger proportion of the population in most countries, and thus the impact of this new medium is conceivably greater. The Spanish general election of 2004 occurred in the wake of an unprecedented terrorist attack, but its outcome reflects the potential that mobile phones have to provide the user with independent information and bring about voter mobilisation. The impression – whether true or not – that the government was withholding information about the attack outraged a small number of voters who, empowered with mobile phones, sent text messages (known as SMS), resulting in unprecedented flash demonstrations on election day eve. Traditional media outlets contributed further to a growing chorus of citizens who felt misled. Those who tend not to vote, young voters and new voters, were galvanised to go to the polls, and they disproportionately favoured the opposition party. While it is too early to determine the political effects of mobile phone diffusion, the events in Spain suggest that mobile technology may come to play an important role in political participation and democracy.

Notes

1. Unless otherwise noted the sources used for this section are the national newspapers El País and El Mundo, which are respectively first and second in terms of circulation in Spain. While newspapers in Spain are known for their political leanings (El País readers are more likely to vote for the PSOE and El Mundo readers are more likely to vote for the PP), both agree on the basic chronology of what transpired during the days immediately following the terrorist attacks. They disagree on whether the PP government deliberately lied to the Spanish people. There have also been accusations by the PP and other newspapers that the PRISA media conglomerate, part‐owner of the newspaper El País, the cable channel CANAL+ and the SER radio network were promoting the idea that the Aznar government was hiding information from the public. For more on the structure and ownership of Spanish media see Trenzado and Núñez (2001).

2. Largely because of western Europe's adoption of the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) standard, the US and Japan no longer are world leaders in mobile phone penetration.

3. Aznar de rositas is slang for ‘departing unscathed’.

4. ‘Paz: un clic puede hacer la diferencia’. Interpress Service News Agency, available online at www.ipsnoticias.net/interna.asp?idnews = 27462, accessed 22 March 2004.

5. ‘Telediarios en retroceso’. El País, 12 April 2004.

6. Aznar had faced considerable opposition to some of his legislative programmes, but it was his support for the Iraq war and for Spain's participation in it that resulted in unprecedented mass opposition. Approximately 90 per cent of Spanish people were against Aznar's Iraqi policy. Other members of the coalition that supported the war also faced opposition at home, but none to the degree of Spain, where opposition never wavered (Pew 2003, 24). For more on Aznar's foreign policy see Aznar (2004) and del Arenal (2003).

7. The only exception was Catalonia, where a coalition of the sister PSOE party in the region and left‐wing nationalist parties took control of the government.

8. Oficina del Censo Electoral, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, available online at www.ine.es, accessed May 2004. According to an analysis provided by El Mundo and the polling firm Sigma Dos, out of the 3 million new PSOE votes, 1.5 million came from former absentee voters, over 500,000 from new voters, almost 700,000 from the PP and about 303,000 from the IU. See ‘Dos millones de nuevos votantes apoyaro a ZP’, EL Mundo, 19 March 2004. See also Michavila (2005).

9. ‘Un clic puede hacer la diferencia’.

10. ‘SMS, páginas web y correo electrónico’, available online at www.junjan.org/weblog/archives/2004_03, accessed May 2004.