O protagonismo midiático da multidão nos movimentos sociais

The importance acquired by social movements and their multitudinous and media expressions in political and social life of countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Brazil, Turkey or Ukraine is accepted unanimously by the analysts in the press and academic studies. This article aims to reflect on aspects which, however, do not seem to be properly identified and established: the crowd event as, still and always, the turning point in the impact of a social movement; the relevance of the crowd beyond the possible failure of the objectives that motivated it; the explanation of the maintenance of the importance of ‘traditional’ media in the era of the Internet and electronic social networks; the historical affiliation of the main features of the multitudinous phenomenon and the correct accent in what is really new, as is the case of the marked individual empowerment in some contemporary crowds, such as Brazil in 2013, and the fluidity of activism in developed democracies.