This paper analyzed and seeks to illuminate aspects of citizen mobilization and citizen participation in the province of San Luis, Argentina, in the 2016-2019 periods. We will discuss what citizen mobilization in San Luis is like and how it takes place and what its contribution to social dialogue. In this incipient research, we note that most of the time citizens mobilize for issues that annoy and concern them. To mobilize is to participate?
San Luis is ruled since the advent of Argentine democracy in 1983, by the Peronist Party led by the brothers Rodriguez Sáa, Adolfo and Alberto. The incipient democratic development has exposed personalism as a political culture constituting an emerging phenomenon of the social order, characterized basically by the claim of certain individuals to belong, possess and dominate the public scene for a long time, blocking in certain opportunities, the dialogue between State and citizenship.
Qualitative research through a survey is a research methodology that is used to obtain information about the reasoning and the underlying motivations of people. The ultimate goal is to fully understand a topic, issue or problem from an individual perspective. 600 surveys were initially formulated asking citizens basically why they do not participate in public affairs and why they are not mobilized for issues of public interest. Citizen definitions allow us to infer the great possibility of using the concepts and instruments of participatory communication to promote citizen interaction.
Carpentier (2016) emphasizes that the political approach to participation produces a more restrictive definition of participation, which refers to the equality of power inequalities in decision-making processes, defining participation as the equalization of relations of power between privileged and non-privileged actors in formal or informal decision-making processes.
The democracy of San Luis can be defined as an opaque democracy (Quiroga, 2016) where the executive power takes precedence over the other powers of democracy. Journalism and the media in San Luis constitute almost an artisanal activity and almost a vocation and few journalists have normal and stable salaries. From social life, San Luis can be defined as a 'contact society' as a unique form of social bonding. Participatory communication emphasizes the participation of people in communicative processes, reversing the stereotypical centered model of media producers (Gong, Zhang, Zhan, Chi, 2018). With the growth of the Internet, the public has the possibility of playing a key role in the production of information, knowledge, and entertainment, participating more in social dialogues.
From the paradigm of participatory communication, we understand that communication processes in local spheres can contribute to democratic development and citizen mobilization and participation in public issues. Precisely the term participation is a concept that is being used in a wide variety of fields and has obtained a wide range of meanings (Carpentier, 2012). Arnstein (1969) points out that citizen participation is closely linked to citizen power and different ideological projects defend different participatory intensities (Carpentier, 2012).
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