ISSN: 2175-7402 CC BY-NC 4.0 https://doi.org/10.46391/ALCEU.v22.ed48.2022.326 ALCEU (Rio de Janeiro, online), V. 22, Nº 48, p.7-32, set./dez. 2022 The public’s turn? Digital environment and mobilization in Latin America. A vez do público? Conjuntura digital e mobilizações na América Latina. Luiz Leo PhD in Communication and Professor at PUC-Rio. Researcher at the Communication, Internet and Politics Research Group. Researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Ibero-American Studies at PUC-Rio. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Departamento de Comunicação, Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brasil. Introduction In the last quarter century, Latin America has been shaken by successive transitions in its democratic order. Reflecting what Fernando Mayorga (2016) defines as the "pendulum of Latin American politics," the late 1990s were marked by the predominance of governments that emphasized the role of the state and distributive policies. From the mid-2000s, a wave of liberal regimes, with a less interventionist character and guided by pro-market initiatives, occupied the political spectrum of the continent. Recently, the 2020s witnessed the emergence of new (and the return of old) political leaders with a more left-leaning orientation - cases in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil. The alternation between political cycles is perceived with relative naturalness by the field of Political Science studies. Norberto Bobbio is one of those who argue that for a democratic regime, being in transformation is its natural state: "democracy is dynamic, despotism is static and always the same as 7