Are there any Spanish speakers among our audience? I'd be curious to know if technology played any kind of part in the remarkable series of events in Spain since Thursday's bombings in Madrid. There was, clearly, a huge outpouring of grief and anger in the wake of the attacks. What was less expected, at least by the UK media, was the sudden lurch towards the Socialist Party in yesterday's poll. What was the catalyst? Did the Spanish blog world - which, we're told, is well-developed and very active - have any influence? What about text messages? SMS has, after all, played an important role in at least one revolution so far. Did a sense of anger at the Government's potentially hasty blaming of ETA find manifestation online and through the airwaves?
Clearly, amid such a huge outpouring of grief I'm not imagining personal media played a major role in swinging the vote. But what is emerging, at least to someone sat in London, is that there was a backlash over the government's handling of the aftermath of Thursday's bombings that caught traditional media a little bit flat footed. It would be very interesting to know if the digital world played any kind of role. Anyone got any insight?
2.10pm update: Aha - Andrew Losowsky emails to say Boingboing had discussion of this recently. Bloggers in Spain reported that protests were being organised by SMS and chatroom. This seems to strengthen the possibility that this tech also then had an influence on the vote itself...
