A primavera das mulheres: a reconfiguração da esfera pública na era das redes sociais

Abstract

The growth of feminism, and of the subaltern and identities movements in general, is related to social practice of the formation process of the public opinion that occurs on the internet: the communicative exchange established between a variety of subjects on the web has made feminism popular, becoming one of the central axes of the public discussion in the beginning of the 21st century. Articulating two concepts of public sphere, one developed by Jürgen Habermas and the other by Hannah Arendt, we elaborated the possibility of the emergence of a virtual public sphere, a space of self-communication, mediated by digital platforms. The virtual public sphere establishes itself as a space for discursive and political disputes. Feminist women use the internet as a space for vocalizations, in that space they create discourses and narratives from a feminine point of view; due to the format and characteristics of web 2.0, these discursive productions spread out, competing for the public opinion through debate. The digital publications Escreva Lola escreva and Capitolina appear as case studies of the functioning of the virtual public sphere, demonstrating two of its particular characteristics: the first one is the interaction between the author and the reader and between the readers, the second one is the publication of discourses produced by women about themselves. We try to give an outline of the possibilities of emancipated political action (in an environment controlled by monopolistic corporations) and the horizontalization processes of the subaltern social movements.