Online Environmental Activism: The Case of Iğneada Floodplain Forest

Süleyman Ahmet Menteş

doi:10.1177/2158244019877877

Abstract

The Internet has changed the ways and conditions of activism. Especially over the last three decades, online activism has been prevalently used for sharing information, connecting people, and mobilizing crowds to express their discontent. The Internet is often referred to as a new form of public sphere, which demonstrates many distinctive and advantageous features compared with traditional types of public spheres. By following public sphere theory, this study examines online activism in the context of environmental activism and aims to understand the potential of the Internet within online activism practices. The studied website “Save the Floodplain Forest” ( www.longozukoru.org ) is an environmentalist activist platform dedicated to saving the Iğneada floodplain forest. The study employed the five-dimensional content analysis scale developed by Kavada to evaluate and analyze the campaign website. The results exhibit inadequacies and point out the potential rooms for improvement for the campaign website.

Highlights

The emergence of the Internet has dramatically changed the way humans interact with their social environment and has increased the pluralism of voices within the public sphere by providing a space for protesters and nonmainstream organizations to articulate their opinions and to mobilize (Kavada, 2005; Moore-Gilbert, 2018)
Some scholars underline the need for online activism to be transferred to offline spaces so that it can fulfill its mission as a social movement (Belk, 2016; Matich, Ashman, & Parsons, 2018; Cammaerts & Van Audenhove, 2005; Papacharissi, 2009), and in this regard some critiques have labeled online activism as “slacktivism” (Christensen, 2011; Kristofferson, White, & Peloza, 2013; Morozov, 2009c) or “clicktivism” (Halupka, 2018) because it fails to initiate social movement
Social media offers a variety of tools, formats, and content that can be used for civic engagement and political participation to support democracies and political communication (Suwana, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

The emergence of the Internet has dramatically changed the way humans interact with their social environment and has increased the pluralism of voices within the public sphere by providing a space for protesters and nonmainstream organizations to articulate their opinions and to mobilize (Kavada, 2005; Moore-Gilbert, 2018). This study on the website “Save the Floodplain Forest” examines online activism in the context of environmental activism and aims to understand the potential of the Internet in online activism practices by following the public sphere theory.

Results

Conclusion