Turkey and social media style protests
Protests in Turkey are getting a lot of press attention and social media coverage. With images like these showing inspiring acts of defiance and public courage, it is not hard to know why.
I found this article, about why Taksim is not Tahrir – but how “social media fuelled protests” still have a certain style, very useful. Amongst other things, Zeynep Tufekci writes, social media style protests share these eight characteristics:
- Lack of organized, institutional leadership
- A feeling of lack of institutional outlet
- Non-activist participation
- Breaking of pluralistic ignorance
- Organized around a “no” not a “go”
- External Attention
- Social Media as Structuring the Narrative
- Not Easily Steerable Towards Strategic Political Action
Tufekci points out that, in part because of these characteristics, social media style protests won’t topple governments by themselves. But they do provide important opportunities to signal dissent, and to show those who might be dissatisfied with certain elements of government that they are not alone.