Creating Alternative Communication Spaces: Resistance, Technology and Social Change

Abstract

The debates on the Internet, as well as on ICTs, still largely revolve around the promises of a more democratic and better society, and inquiries whether these promises have proven true. Considering the fundamentally social nature of communication technologies, it cannot be claimed that there is an enclosed process for ICTs; even though the “profit-led” trends have predominant position over these technologies. As was emphasized by Raymond Williams, communication technologies are not static and totally predictable processes, rather they are shaped by social relations and struggles [10]. In this respect, manifesting emancipatory praxes in order to build “alternative” ways for communication and contributing to a critical understanding on the possibilities of ICTs in order to form a “counterhegemonic” discourse are crucial. In this framework, the study examines Capul TV, one of the nonprofit “alternative” communication spaces/platforms of the Gezi Resistance in Turkey, by focusing on Raymond Williams’ understanding on the relationship between communication technologies and social change. This study aims to contribute to a Marxist materialist position on the relationship between communication technologies and social change in order to achieve a critical and holistic analysis on the emancipatory and revolutionary potentials of ICTs. Such a questioning seems especially important when the increasing academic inquiries on the relationship between “social movements” and “alternative” usages of ICTs are taken into consideration.