Social movements

I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is turn my computer on and read the newspaper. A spanish newspaper.

If we went back only 20 years, this would seem impossible to do. But nowadays, I'm sure we wouldn't manage to live without online international news.

I happen to be spanish. I don't know if many of you have heard about the Spanish Revolution, but it started in may 2011 and it's still going on. Mainly in the capital of the country, Madrid, and Barcelona, the second biggest city. How did it all start? Some people, tired of politicians and the way the government is managing the huge crisis that Spain is suffering, started to talk about it online. Twitter, Facebook, Tuenti (a spanish social network very similar to Facebook) suddenly became the tools to make everyone join at one place. At first they were few, but the message expanded rapidly and every day there were more and more "indignados" (angry because of the system).

This is how "la puerta del Sol" -city centre of Madrid- looked like in may:

Could this have happened without the help of social networks? Of global networks?

People used to think that there was no way to fight against the established power but...is that premise still valid? People have find a way to be heard and to be noticed. We are not puppets anymore.

This movement, known as "Democracia Real Ya" - Real Democracy Now- was in every spanish city and all over the spanish embassies during the months of may and till the 15 of june. It expanded and started a similar movement in Greece. It may seem that it has ended, but it's not. It's still alive and will keep on living thanks to Internet. The network of networks.

I started talking about newspapers because I wanted to talk about this movement and how things have changed. The economic situation of my country scares me more every day. I've been reading terrible predictions about what could happen and I could do it because of the global system that we live in. Even though I'm 20.000 km away from home, I can feel what's going on, I can feel that people are terrified because they don't know what's gonna happen. We could be the next ones needing to be saved. And, of course, not the last ones. Europe would...how to say this...be over.

That's global networks. If one gets affected, be careful...you could be next.

I don't really know what I wanted to say with this but I'm just scared. Don't hear any good news.

Starting at UOW

So...my name is Antia, I'm 22 and I am an exchange student who has just arrived from Spain. I study Journalism back home and, hopefully, will finish my degree this semester.

I am currently living in Campus East-and loving it-and been here only for one week. But I have already been to the 'party bus', with its coloured lights and party music. I have also been to Sydney and Fairy Meadow beach and can't wait for summer to arrive. It was 30C in Spain so...yeah, I'm all day freezing. Don't have a heater. Need to buy one.

I come from two different cities of Spain. One of them is San Sebastian-the most beautiful city of the country, and also the most expensive one-, 30 km from France






and the other one is Santiago de Compostela, close to the Atlantic Ocean. Also beautiful but in a different way.


This is me! Well, at least a part of me. See you in class :)