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Online political trolling in the context of post-Gezi social media in Turkey
Abstract and Figures
Drawing on the approach suggesting that the analysis of social media in relation to democracy should be provided within its own social context, we outline the social media activities adopted by the ruling populist political party in Turkey, namely, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), aimed at reinforcing its political ideology. We also unpack the ‘political online trolling’ as a manifestation of online practices driving the post-truth politics in Turkey. Following the Gezi protests, when social media and, in particular, Twitter gained trust and popularity as a news source due to severe censorship and polarization in the traditional mass media, the AKP adopted an aggressive strategy to attack and destroy all opposition as well as to manipulate public opinion through their political trolling activities. Employing the approach of digital ethnography and drawing on the archive of mass media outputs about the trolling events, we discuss how the ruling party has adopted online political trolling as a strategy, one that is deeply embedded in the political system, politicians and mainstream media. We also explain how trolling practices are facilitated by the coordinated work of these institutions to silence all critical opposing voices, in particular journalists and how they stifle public debate that is grounded in truth and evidence. We have also concluded that the chilling effects of political trolling lead to quitting social media, self-censorship and less participation in public debate of unprotected citizens who are the most vulnerable targets for the trolls. The trolls have targeted the dissent voices not only for criticizing the government publicly, but also to brand them as terrorists and traitors through increasingly polarizing and discriminating language based on nationalist and religious perspectives, which peaked in the aftermath of the 15 July coup attempt and the debates on the presidential regime. Far from condemnation of the trolling activities along with their polarizing and hateful rhetoric, the mainstream culture and public discourse seem to have been taken over by an increasing trolling subculture, which inhibits public debate, discredits the sources of truth, fosters fanaticism and encourages a hate discourse and violence, all of which are undermining democracy.
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... In their crusade against dissent, what was left of the free/opposition media practically disappeared; the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government and pro-government businesses now control 90% of mainstream media in Turkey (Ahval, 2018). On the other hand, Twitter, which has been one of the last remaining outlets for free speech (Dogu and Mat, 2019;Basaran, 2020), is now a space in which dissent is closely monitored and reported to authorities by government supported trolls and other pro-government accounts (Bulut and Yoruk, 2017;Saka, 2017). Due to this, studies point to a significant increase in selfcensorship and a decrease in political hashtag use due to the fear of prosecution (PEN International, 2015;Tanash et al., 2017). ...
... In fact, the ban only worked in stopping pro-government users and politicians as they could not deliberately ignore the rules set by the government. However, banning, and demonising Twitter as a space used by foreign agents and terrorists was still a form of censorship (Karatas and Saka, 2017;Krajeski, 2014). Tufekci (2015) argued that the aim of the ban was to sully the motivations behind expressing dissent on Twitter and to discredit Twitter as a fringe and manipulative platform. ...
... In fact, while dissidents were using Twitter to express dissent and coordinate one of the largest protests in Turkish history, AKP's presence on social media was mainly limited to party accounts (Waldman and Caliskan, 2017). In response, AKP started to establish their own base/supporter group on Twitter to regain their reputation and disrupt dissent (Saka, 2017). Studies suggest that 6000 trolls (namely, AkTrolls) were employed by the government to push government agenda on Twitter and to discredit opposition rhetoric through misinformation, lynching and trolling (Bulut and Yoruk, 2017). ...
Microcelebrity involvement in politics has recently gained some attention in academic research but the emphasis is mainly on the microcelebrities that exist in settings where freedom of speech is protected. Whereas in settings like Turkey where explicit dissent is criminalised and denied public attention, digital spaces maintained by microcelebrities constitute an important site for dissident narratives gaining much needed visibility. At the same time, their visibility and reach put these accounts at a considerable risk of being detected and penalised by the authorities. In this thesis, I explore the ways Twitter microcelebrities partake in anti-government political talk on Turkish Twitter through an analysis of 97 microcelebrity accounts in the 3 months leading up to the 2018 presidential and parliamentary elections. This election period is particularly important as it took place under a state of emergency and during which the opposition parties were denied access to mass media, which meant that a large portion of political discourse was confined to online spaces. I find that despite the staggering risks, Twitter microcelebrities consistently framed partaking in anti-government political talk during elections as a duty for all microcelebrity accounts due to their ability to command public attention. In doing so, they distanced themselves from specific political parties and created narratives that appeal to a politically diverse audience by placing the emphasis on their common aim of replacing the AKP government. In fulfilling this demanding task, to mitigate the risk of lending visibility to potentially incriminating content, these accounts disguised their criticisms behind a creative language relying on their internet culture literacy and the vernacular of the oppositional subcultures in Turkey. I argue that while microcelebrity accounts promote a politics of recognition among politically diverse audiences and create a space for strategic unity, these evasion strategies that increasingly inform the conventions of political talk in online spaces, inevitably create a divide by giving political agency exclusively to those who are “in on” these online conventions.
... Moreover, these trolls serve as raider troops for the new AKP policies or discourses in Turkey. Hence, Turkey is a case where political online trolling is a major factor in determining and manipulating the agenda (Bulut and Yörük 2017;Karatas and Saka 2017). Before the general elections in 2007, YouTube also played an important role in Turkish politics. ...
... This is because the AKP government has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness in developing various surveillance strategies that include legal and technical restrictions, such as blocking access to social media platforms, requesting content removal and prosecuting and detaining Turkish social media users on charges of insulting government officials (i.e. Erdoğan) or supporting terrorist organizations (Karatas and Saka 2017). Hence, opposition concerns that the AKP government may use the new regulations to curb online dissent against its rule is not without any base. ...
... The rest were accounts acting under pseudo names. The AKP has been using online political trolling as a means to drive the post-truth politics because the social media became trustworthy and gained more popularity after the Gezi Protests (Karatas and Saka 2017). The AKP uses social media accounts using pseudo names to disseminate its views and to manipulate the public opinion in Turkey. ...
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its leader Erdoğan represent the culturally heterogeneous periphery against the old ruling elite in Turkey. After almost two decades in power, Erdoğan and the AKP subdued the mainstream media while they aim to realize the same scenario with respect to social media. Social media are spaces for governmental or pro-governmental propaganda, but also for the expression of political dissent. Politicians in Turkey have been using various social media platforms more effectively since the 2010s. This research reveals that the great majority of the content shared by Erdoğan and the AKP Facebook (FB) accounts belong to their own media production teams. The shared sources are disseminating pro-government propaganda. The Erdoğan FB account has a more intensive network than the AKP FB account. We also found that the main promoters of these two FB accounts were using pseudo names, which might indicate that the main promoters were political trolls.
... This is because the AKP government has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness in developing various surveillance strategies that include legal and technical restrictions, such as blocking access to social media platforms, requesting content removal and prosecuting and detaining Turkish social media users on charges of insulting government officials (i.e. Erdoğan) or supporting terrorist organizations (Karatas and Saka 2017). Hence, opposition concerns that the AKP government may use the new regulations to curb online dissent against its rule is not without any base. ...
... The rest were accounts acting under pseudo names. The AKP has been using online political trolling as a means to drive the post-truth politics because the social media became trustworthy and gained more popularity after the Gezi Protests (Karatas and Saka 2017). The AKP uses social media accounts using pseudo names to disseminate its views and to manipulate the public opinion in Turkey. ...
The purpose of this section is to bridge research, theory and policies, thus making academic publications more relevant and useful for stakeholders and policymakers. We pursue multidisci- plinary exploration of issues and propose an approach that crosses boundaries among research fields such as political science (and its subfields public policies and political communication), law, or economy (e.g. in the case of financing of electoral campaigns or taxing technological companies). We present a mosaic of positions, opinions and views that summarise the gist of current national and international discussions. Last but not least – our publication reflects policy and research agendas of the day, thus keeping a record of history.
... At the same time, it was an outcry against the erosion of Turkish democracy. Its institutions, including the mainstream media (Karatas and Saka, 2017) commanded decreasing levels of trust (Konda, 2014) while being increasingly hollowed out by a mix of neoliberal policies and the authoritarian tendencies of the Erdoğan government (Iğsız, 2014). ...
Online lynching targets all kinds of online activities carried out by a user and their presence in digital networks. Publicly-published posts or such different contents as leaked private messages-even an offline action-can be used as an excuse to start online lynching. Activists are one of the groups that are considered the victims of online lynching while interactively using SNWs to inform others, to provide them with skills on social issues, or to reveal their skills. Online lynchers are directly concerned with the activists themselves rather than the advocacy contents of the activists. The purpose of this research is to discuss the lynching experiences of activists on social media. Moreover, to reveal the underlying causes of lynching and its consequences from the perspective of the activists. In this context, a semi-structured interview was conducted with some vegan activists producing content on social media accounts that represents an individual or a group in Turkey. The activists for the interviews were reached by using the snowball sampling method. The research is outstanding in terms of making sense of the online manifestation of lynching, an offline concept, in the framework of activism. 2 will present that online lynching also has a role in the offline lives of the victims and the concept of online lynching is frequently associated with the concepts of power/potency/masculinity. Moreover, significant differences have been revealed between cyberbullying and online lynching in terms of repetition, anonymity and power imbalance.
Pod vladavinom Stranke pravde i razvitka (AKP) Turska je poprimila gotovo sve odlike populističkog autoritarnog režima. Od dana kada je stupila na vlast, AKP se promovirala kao sluga turskog naroda. Nedavne studije pokazale su kako je populizam u doba AKP-a postao dominantna politička strategija. Znanstvenici ga istražuju kao diskurs, komunikacijski pristup koji apelira na narod i strategiju za mobilizaciju masa. Međutim, ova objašnjenja populizma u doba AKP-a još uvijek su prilično demonstrativna; ovaj fenomen treba istražiti s pomoću novog, holističkog pristupa. Stoga ova studija problematizira populizam u doba AKP-a kao dispozitiv i pokušava ga razumjeti kroz holistički pristup. Kako bi se ova hipoteza provjerila empirijski, studija se usredotočuje na odluku o povlačenju iz Istanbulske konvencije. Istražuje kako su elite AKP-a opravdale odluku na Twitteru tijekom ožujka 2021. U tom kontekstu studija se usredotočuje na tvitove elita AKP-a i trolova koji zagovaraju AKP te primjenjuje više metoda u tom procesu. Kao prvo, tvitovi elita AKP-a analizirani su diskursno-povijesnim pristupom. Zatim, kako bi se razumjelo kako se ovi tvitovi odražavaju na hashtag kampanje koje zagovaraju AKP, oznake #GüçlüKadınGüçlüTürkiye i #Morardınızmı temeljito su ispitane. Rezultati su pokazali da su društveni mediji najvažnija tehnologija za Davu kad je u pitanju pojednostavljenje složenih društvenih pitanja i uvođenje polariziranog mentaliteta u svakodnevni život. Dava je značajno pridonijela promociji neprijateljstva (koje joj ide u prilog), a politiku je pretvorila u vladavinu – što je moguće samo kroz širenje osjećaja mržnje.
There are many developments affecting societal, cultural, and political relations. The ubiquitous spread of information and communication tools (ICTs) are among these developments. Studies in literature are not indifferent to the impacts brought about in politics by ICTs, particularly by social networking sites (SNSs). During the research, many studies were found that focus on changes and transformations induced by ICTs that unprecedentedly affect interactions and relationships in political life. SNSs, a part of ICTs, have transformative effects on elected and their voters. Though there are many papers that focus on SNSs and political use of SNSs, a void was observed in relevant literature focusing on synthesizing the literature on particular country cases. For this reason, a systematic literature analysis was performed. Findings of this chapter on the political use of SNSs in Turkey indicate that political actors do not fully take advantage of SNSs and their potentialities. The political use of SNSs presents a rhizomatic formation rather than being hierarchical.
Bu çalışmanın amacı Türk gençlerinin Türkiye’de yaşayan Suriyeli sığınmacılara karşı olumlu
ve olumsuz algılarının hangi platformlar üzerinden üretildiğini saptamaktır. Böylece Suriyeli
sığınmacıların Türk toplumu ile uyumunun (entegrasyon) sağlamasındaki engeller tespit
edilecek ve bu engellere karşı çözüm önerileri üretilecektir. Bu çalışma iki araştırma sorusunu
barındırmaktadır: (1) Türk gençlerinin Suriyeli sığınmacılara yönelik olumsuz algısı var mıdır?
(2) Eğer varsa, bu olumsuz algı hangi platformlar üzerinden zuhur etmektedir. Bu araştırma
soruları baz alınarak dört tane yönlü hipotez geliştirilmiştir. Bunlar; H1: Türk gençlerinin
Suriyeli sığınmacılara yönelik olumsuz bir algısı vardır. H2: Türk gençlerinin Suriyeli
sığınmacılara yönelik bu olumsuz algısı daha çok ekonomik kategori üzerinden zuhur
etmektedir. H3: Türk gençlerinin Suriyeli sığınmacılara yönelik bu olumsuz algısı siyasi/politik
kategorisi üzerinden zuhur etmektedir. H4: Türk gençlerinin Suriyeli sığınmacılara yönelik bu
olumsuz algısı sosyokültürel kategori üzerinden zuhur etmektedir. Bu hipotezlerin test edilmesi
için seçilen araştırma yöntemi anket çalışmasıdır. Bu çalışmada kullanılan anket, Birleşmiş
Milletler bünyesinde faaliyet gösteren Dünya Gıda Programı tarafından Suriyeli sığınmacılara
yönelik algının ölçülmesi için hazırlanmıştır. Çankırı ili içinde yaşayan tüm gençler ile
görüşebilme imkânı olmadığından evrenden örneklem seçilmiş ve kartopu örneklem türü
kullanılmıştır. Bu anket çalışması 2018 yılında Çankırı ili sınırları içerisinde yaşayan 108
üniversite öğrencisi (n=108 ve ortalamayaş= 20.5) ile yüz yüze yapılmıştır. Datalar sahadan
gönüllülük esasına göre toplanmıştır. Datalar SPSS üzerinden veri girişleri yapılarak analize
tabii tutulmuştur. 26 soruyu içeren bu ankette ortaya çıkan bulgular şunlardır: Türk gençlerinin
Suriyeli sığınmacılara karşı birtakım olumsuz algıları söz konusudur. Bu olumsuz algılar
ekonomik açıdan değil, daha ziyade siyasi/politik ve sosyokültürel alanda ortaya çıkmıştır.
Örneğin, Türk gençleri Suriyeli sığınmacıların kesinlikle Türkçe dilini öğrenmelerini
1. ULUSLARARASI HİTİT GÜVENLİK ÇALIŞMALARI KONGRESİ
24-27 ARALIK 2021
87
1
st HİTİT INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON SECURITY STUDIES
24-27 DECEMBER 2021
düşünürken aynı şeyin yani kendilerinin Arapça öğrenmelerine kesinlikle katılmamaktadır.
Suriyeli sığınmacılara Türk pasaportunun kesinlikle verilmemesini düşünenlerin sayısı ise
%64’dür. Bu rakam diğer sorulardan gelen yüzdelik dilimlerin en yüksek oranını
oluşturmaktadır. Ayrıca sığınmacıların her ne kadar Türkçe öğrenseler ve Türk hayat tarzını
benimseseler bile kesinlikle Türk pasaportunun verilmemesi cevabı maalesef büyük
çoğunluğunu oluşturmaktadır. Bir diğer ilginç bulgu ise Türk gençleri sığınmacıların devlet
okullarında ve kamu hastanelerinde hizmet almasına olumlu bakarken, onlarla aynı binada
oturmaktan ise rahatsızlık duyacaklarını belirtmişlerdir. Fakat sığınmacıların sadece kamplarda
yaşamasına da sıcak bakmamaktırlar. Sığınmacıların devlet güvencesinde daha insani
koşullarda yaşamaları gerektiği ve her türlü eğitim, sağlık gibi kamu hizmetlerinden
faydalanmalarına olumlu baktıkları görülmektedir. Diğer bir bulguya göre Türk gençleri
yaşadıkları muhitteki hayat pahalılığının sığınmacılar yüzünden arttığı konusunda kararsız
kalırken, suç oranının artışında sığınmacıların payı olduğunu düşünmekteler. Açıkçası suç
oranlarının ‘öteki’nin gelişiyle arttığı algısı literatürde uzun zamandan beri yer almaktadır.
Ayrıca Türk gençlerinin yaklaşık %64’ü sığınmacıların Türkiye’deki varlığının Türk toplumsal
dokusunu olumsuz yönde etkileyebileceğini düşünmektedir. Sonuç olarak, Türk gençlerinin
Suriyeli sığınmacılara yönelik olumsuz algısının kaynağı daha çok sosyokültürel ve
politik/siyasi sebeplerden kaynaklanmaktadır. Bu bağlamda toplumsal kimlik, hayat tarzı,
vatandaşlık ve Türkçe dili gibi başlıklar ön plana çıkmaktadır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Uluslararası Göç, Türkiye, Suriyeli Sığınmacılar, Algı ve Toplumsal
Entegrasyon
Sosyal medya, günümüzde insanların çeşitli alanlarda kendilerine özgü duygu ve düşünceleri sanal bir platform üzerinde özgürce paylaştıkları yegâne platformdur. Bu sebeple özellikle son 10 yılda toplumda hemen hemen herkesin fiziksel hayattaki somut kişilik özelliklerine ilave olarak, sanal platformlarda oluşturduğu sanal kişilikler mevcuttur. Söz konusu sanal platformlarda birçok konuda anlık olarak görüşler paylaşılmakta, söz konusu görüşler “trend” olarak popülerlik kazanmasıyla birlikte tüm toplum için yönlendirici veya birleştirici olabilmektedir. Sanal kişilikler üzerinden, bireyler takipçilerine çeşitli konularda mesajlar yayınlamakta ve yayınlanan mesajlar, kimi takipçilerce beğenilmekte veya tekrar paylaşılmaktadır. Sosyal medya şirketleri ise olumlu tepki alan paylaşımları bazı algoritmalar yardımıyla benzer yönelimde olan kullanıcılara önermesi ile bireylerin attığı mesajlar, toplumsal kitle tepkisine dönüşebilmektedir. Yapılan paylaşımlar, elbette çoğu konuda toplumda olumlu gelişmelerin yol açmasına sebep olmakla birlikte, kime zaman suçu yönlendirici veya ihtiva edici olabilmekte, bu durum da açık kaynak temelli istihbarat elde etmenin önemini vurgulamaktadır.
Sosyal medya kullanımının çok yoğun olduğu günümüzde açık kaynak temelli istihbarat elde etmek ancak veri madenciliği teknikleri ile yapılacak analizler ile mümkün olabilmektedir. Bu çalışmada sosyal medyadan elde edilen veriler ile haber ajanslarının paylaşımlarının mukayese edilerek, ne kadar benzerlik gösterdiğinin belirlenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Yapılan bu araştırmadaki veriler, kullanıcıların herkese açık daha fazla paylaşım yaptığı ve verileri elde etmede kaynak kod kullanılmasına imkân tanıyan “Twitter” isimli sosyal ağdan 04 Eylül - 04 Aralık 2019 tarihleri arasını ihtiva edecek şekilde, İngilizce dil süzgecinde “#” simgesi içeren 4.030.945 adet tweet Twitter API aracılığıyla Python ile çekilmiştir. Sosyal ağlarda “#” etiketiyle konuşulan konular ile aynı tarihlerde “BBC News (World)”, “Reuters”, “Al Jazeere News”, “BBC Breaking News”, “CNN International” ve “CNN”’e ait haber paylaşımlarının tamamının birleşimi üzerinden TF-IDF kullanılarak vektörel benzerlik analizi yapılmıştır. Araştırmada yalnızca Twitter API üzerinden metin madenciliği çalışması ile elde edilen birincil veriler kullanılmıştır. Metin madenciliği işleminde, öncelikle ham veriler kullanılabilir bir formata dönüştürülmüş ve müteakibinde veriler üzerinde temizlik yaparak, elde edilen veriler ön işleme tabi tutulmuştur. Çalışmanın yukarıda belirtilen tarih aralığında olması ile Twitter özelinde yapılması çalışmanın kısıdını oluşturmaktadır.
Çalışma sonucunda Twitter içindeki paylaşımların %18 ile %51 oranları arasında haber ajanslarına ait paylaşımlarla benzerlik gösterdiği ve en fazla benzerliğin %51 ile BBC News (World) ile olduğu belirlenmiştir. Haber ajanslarından elde edilen bilgi, insanların sosyal medyada yazdıklarının ne kadarını karşıladığı tespit edilmiş olup, yapılan tespitte sosyal medyanın istihbarat için yadsınamaz öneme haiz olduğu belirlenmiştir. Zaman zaman sosyal medya da yalan haberlerin bile dolaştığı bilinmekle birlikte, paylaşımın kendisi yalan bile olsa bunun açık kaynak istihbaratı açısından kolluk birimleri tarafından tespiti önem arz etmektedir. Yapılan bu örneklem çalışmadan yola çıkarak, sosyal medyadaki hareketliliğin güvenlik güçleri ve araştırmacılar tarafından incelenerek, bilgi çıkarımı yapılmasının suç sorununun kökeninin belirlenmesinde ve yapılacak suçu önleyici çalışmalarda fayda sağlayacağı değerlendirilmektedir.
This article focuses on AKTrolls, defined as pro-government political trolls in Turkey, while attempting to draw implications about political trolling in the country in general. It examines their methods and effects, and it interrogates whether (and how) Turkish authorities have attempted to shape or counter politically motivated social media content production through trolling after the Gezi Park Protests that took place in 2013. My findings are based on an ethnographic study that included participant observation and in-depth interviews in a setting that is under-studied and about which reliable sources are difficult to find. The study demonstrates political trolling activity in Turkey is more decentralized and less institutionalized than generally thought, and is based more on ad hoc decisions by a larger public. However, I argue here that AKTrolls do have impact on reducing discourses on social media that are critical of the government, by engaging in surveillance, among other practices.
This essay explores the changing character of public discourse in the Age of Twitter. Adopting the perspective of media ecology, the essay highlights how Twitter privileges discourse that is simple, impulsive, and uncivil. This effect is demonstrated through a case study of Donald J. Trump's Twitter feed. The essay concludes with a brief reflection on the end times: a post-truth, post-news, President Trump, Twitter-world.
This paper reveals the ways in which media autocracy operates on political, judicial, economic and discursive levels in post-2007 Turkish media. Newsmakers in Turkey currently experience five different systemic kinds of neoliberal government pressures to keep their voice down: conglomerate pressure, judicial suppression, online banishment, surveillance defamation and accreditation discrimination. The progression of restrictions on media freedom has increased in volume annually since 2007; this includes pressure on the Doğan Media Group, the YouTube ban, arrests of journalists in the Ergenekon trials, phone tapping/ taping of political figures and the exclusion of all unfriendly reporters from political circles. The levels and tools of this autocracy eventually lead to certain conclusions about the qualities of this media environment: it is a historically conservative, redistributive, panoptic and discriminatory media autocracy.
The big question that pervades debate between techno-optimists and their detractors is whether social media are good for democracy. Do they help to produce or accelerate democratic change or, alternatively, might they hinder it? This article foregrounds an alternative perspective, arguing that individual social networking applications likely do not fulfil a single political function across national contexts. Their functionality may be mediated instead by language and by pre-existing relationships between the state and offline domestic media. We arrive at this conclusion through examining reactions on Twitter to two fatal events that occurred in early 2015: the death in suspicious and politically charged circumstances of the special prosecutor Alberto Nisman in Argentina, and the murder in Russia of opposition activist Boris Nemtsov. Several similarities between the two deaths provide the conditions for a comparative analysis of the discourses around them in the Spanish-language and Russian-language Twitter spheres, respectively. In Russia, a hostile social media environment polluted by high levels of automated content and other spam reduced the utility of Twitter for opposition voices, who work against an increasingly authoritarian state. In Argentina, a third-wave democracy, Twitter discourses appeared as predominantly coextensive with other pro-government and opposition online, print, and broadcast information and opinion sources, thus consolidating and amplifying a highly polarized and repetitive wider public political conversation. Despite the potential for social media to help citizens circumvent formal and informal restrictions to discursive participation in national public spheres, in the cases that we compare here domestic political structures play a key role in determining the uses and limitations of online spaces for recounting and expressing opinion on current affairs stories involving the state.
Article Summary Discussion of the political impact of social media has focused on the power of mass protests to topple governments. In fact, social media's real potential lies in supporting civil society and the public sphere — which will produce change over years and decades, not weeks or months. On January 17, 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him. Less than two hours after the decision was announced, thousands of Filipinos, angry that their corrupt president might be let off the hook, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila. The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response — close to seven million text messages were sent that week — so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented. Estrada's fate was sealed; by January 20, he was gone. The event marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader. Estrada himself blamed "the text-messaging generation" for his downfall. Since the rise of the Internet in the early 1990s, the world's networked population has grown from the low millions to the low billions. Over the same period, social media have become a fact of life for civil society worldwide, involving many actors — regular citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations, telecommunications firms, software providers, governments. This raises an obvious question for the U.S.
Based on a survey of participants in Egypt's Tahrir Square protests, we demonstrate that social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success. We demonstrate that people learned about the protests primarily through interpersonal communication using Facebook, phone contact, or face-to-face conversation. Controlling for other factors, social media use greatly increased the odds that a respondent attended protests on the first day. Half of those surveyed produced and disseminated visuals from the demonstrations, mainly through Facebook.
This article sets out to examine the linkages between the media and politics in Turkey. It argues that, rooted in the world of politics from the outset, Turkish media has always been marked by a high degree of political parallelism. As regulator and funder, the state, making up the political majority, exerted strong control over the media. In the 1990s, the shift to a globalized market and the explosive growth of private broadcasting did not decrease the high degree of political parallelism. Instead, it enabled media owners to use their media properties to intervene in political decisions that have a central role in capital accumulation. Today, deeply divided into two camps, media is the principal locus of bitter political strife.