Reflexión crítica sobre los indicadores utilizados para la medición de los usos sociales de Internet

Abstract

Paraphrasing Baudrillard (1974), we take as the object of study of our article the necessary critique of the customary indicators used in the reports which diagnose the progress of the Information Society at the global, regional and local level. These reports prove two central questions. First of all, the traditional indicators reveal the interests of the large corporations in the telecommunications sector. These indicators function as activators of the demand for services or equipment provided by these companies. Secondly, in these reference reports there is a total absence of those indicators that allow measuring the social and political uses of Internet, carried out by active citizenship and social movements. From this scenario, and following the methodology for critical analysis of secondary sources, in this paper we deal with the theoretical and practical work carried out in the recent past by the social movements, aimed to declass other ways of constructing the knowledge (García, 2007) and to avoid the miss of the experience (Sousa, 2003) accumulated and built by the social movements. The result of our work allows us to find on the social movements new ways and new places of production of knowledge (Zibechi, 2008) based on participatory methodologies. From these new keys emerge other imaginaries and social practices that need to be translated into new sindicators, so that they can measure (and legitimate) other approaches to the Information Society more social and political.