#YoSoy132

Social networking sites have been playing an important role in Mexico’s upcoming presidential elections. Twitter has been the most used site for organizing both in favor and against certain candidates in the Mexican politic scenario.

The most important phenomena concerning this elections and social networking is the movement called #YoSoy132 (#Iam132), a movement composed by students from different universities, both public and private.

This movement emerged in May after a protest done by students of the Iberoamericana University when the PRI Candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, was visiting that institution as part of his campaign events.  This party and several news media claimed that those protesters were not students, but people brought by opposing parties.

After this accusations, 131 students responded by uploading a video to YouTube showing their students ID and creating the hashtag #yosoy132 implying that the student 132 is anyone that agrees with or wants to join the movement.  This hashtag has been used both in Twitter and Facebook publications.

Since then, the movement has gradually expanded, both in offline and online environments .  It has generated citizen mobilisations in different cities throughout Mexico.   Moreover, it has been officially proclaimed that #yosoy132 is a movement against Enrique Peña Nieto.

During this months of political tension #YoSoy132 has done several events such as a protest against media bias in Mexico City, 2 protests against Enrique Peña Nieto in various cities throughout Mexico, a massive meeting for the media democratization and a protest in the biggest football stadium in Mexico during a football game.  


Different actions have also arisen from this movement such as the #Conciertoyosoy132 (#concertIam132), a music concert done by musicians that agree with the Movement.

But the most important event that this movement has accomplished was the first presidential debate in Mexico called by students where, except for Enrique Peña Nieto, all the presidential candidates agreed to participate.

With a dynamic and a little more flexible format compared to the traditional ones, this debate also included the participation of several students from different universities through digital platforms.  Moreover, the hashtag #DebateYoSoy132 became not only a national trending topic that day, but also a global one on Twitter.  Although they were some technical failures regarding the transmission (it was only seen online and on several radio stations), this event marked a milestone in the political history of Mexico.


#YoSoy132 is the second Mexican example after the Red por la Paz y Justicia (Network for Peace and Justice) that show us how this country is using the Internet and social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook as an efficient tool for current social movements. We must acknowledge, though, that the vast majority of the Mexican Population has no access to the Internet.  Therefore, they might be not aware of this movements or the information they are trying to communicate.

However, since these online organization ends in an offline environment, the people involved can be an influence for their family members and friends, specially an influence for those who are not sure for whom to vote.  

The question still remains: will these online movements modify in a radical way how people will vote?  The results are yet to be seen.