Social Media Effects on the Gezi Park Movement in Turkey: Politics Under Hashtags

Abstract

This study aims at understanding the role of social media in the Gezi Park movement in Turkey. The movement started as a protest of an environmentalist group then it turned into a social-political movement. The protestors were opposed to the project of re-building Gezi Park and Taksim Square that is the public area at the center of Istanbul. Politicians, demonstrators, the public and media have agreed on the fact that social media had a significant role in this movement. Social media, especially Twitter, was regarded as the main reason of this movement. The effect of social media on politics on the development of social movements and political participation is often evaluated as an important topic in current academic studies. This study contributes to this literature by focusing on the role of social media in the Gezi Park movement. The analysis consists of Twitter functions, Twitter actors as users, and the forms of communication on Twitter.