Right to public space and right to democracy: The role of social media in Gezi Park

Abstract

Gezi Park represents a unique example of a mobilization process focused on the right to public space and democracy in Turkey, where forms of bottom up active citizenship have emerged in order to bring forward demands for environmental and social justice. This paper is focused on the role of social media in triggering the protests and in establishing these two central frames. By conducting a discourse analysis of social media content, we provide an overview of the principal narratives that emerged during the days of the Gezi movement. Our article is centrally focused on the adoption of a connective action framework. We argue that social media in occupygezi played the role of mobilizing agent that brought together a heterogeneous mix of participants and offered the chance to personalize the individual grievances that were expressed and promoted by the participants.

Keywords:

• social media
• personalized frames
• Gezi Park movement
• public space
• mobilization
• connective action
• Turkey

Introduction

This paper focuses on the role of social media in the enhancement of public participation in the case of the Gezi protests in Turkey. The civil unrest erupted over the government’s project of building a replica of military barracks at Istanbul’s Gezi Park. What in the beginning was a protest to protect the park, in the space of a few days became an anti-government movement that lasted for over four months. As Göle (2013) argues, the Gezi movement opened up the path for the creation of new forms of citizenship in the country that go beyond the traditional dichotomies that used to characterize the socio-political arena.

The experiences of Gezi are in fact central for re-orienting current research on active citizenship in Turkey as well as offering important insights for the general understanding of the concept in a country characterized by a strong republican state tradition (Keyman and Içduygu 2003). Içduygu, Çolak, and Soyarik (1999) argue that the Turkish model of citizenship prominently overlaps with a project of identity building that is directly influenced by the evolutionary characteristics of the Kemalist republican project focused on developing ‘a monolithic unique culture and identity’ (197), where the citizen is conceived as passive. The dominance of the state over the individual is a peculiar characteristic of what Keyman and Içduygu (2003) define as the militant citizen: a citizen that is ‘active in terms of its duties for the state, but passive with respect to its will to carry the language of rights against state power’ (231). The attempt to gain ownership of the public space in the case of Gezi, represents a clear example of a bottom up expression of active citizenship where different claims were developed and communicated in order to break this strong link with the authoritarian state. This results in our view in direct demands to gain ownership of public policy processes and to pave the way to develop forms of deliberative democracy in the country. Gezi Park, in our argument, therefore represents a unique laboratory and experiment of democracy, where different forms of offline and online activism generated a meaningful and alternative imaginary of how the Turkish society should look.

This paper focuses on the role that social media played in the shaping of the social dynamics that the Gezi movement unveiled and which appear to challenge the long established social and political norms. We argue, that the social platforms—and in particular Facebook and Twitter—played a dual role in the Gezi movement. First, they offered the space for disseminating information regarding the protests both at the national and international level. And second, they became a channel for communication amongst the protesters and those in support of the movement, which resulted into a large number of participants joining the demonstrations throughout the country. We argue that Gezi Park movement is a case of connective action where social media became a tool for bringing to the forefront a form of active citizenship that urges for greater democracy and civil rights in Turkey.

Occupygezi: A laboratory of democracy?

The initial claims of Gezi movement, known as occupygezi, were mostly based on environmentalist claims and on the protection of the urban space of Istanbul. These claims challenged the urban development project that was launched in 2011 and which included a number of changes in Istanbul that would eventually transform radically the face of the city. Part of this project was the demolition of what is known as Gezi Park to build a replica of nineteenth century Ottoman barracks planned to serve as a commercial shopping centre and a mosque (Kuymulu, 2013). The redevelopment project of Istanbul was met with strong criticism by a number of professional bodies, architects, NGOs as well as community groups (Gül, Dee, and Cünük 2014). These objections were focused on the functionality of the new space and the demolition of one of the few green spaces in the centre of Istanbul, which currently serves as a recreational space and its transformation into a commercial centre. In addition, several claims went against a process of change in the symbolic meaning of the Taksim area and the cultural heritage that the place inhabits, into a totally new area free from its socio-political past. By consequence, several objections were expressed due to the fact that the decision for the redevelopment was taken despite public objection (Gül, Dee, and Cünük 2014).

The initial pacifist sit in that was organized at the end of May 2013 to protest against the project of the re-urbanization of Taksim square in the heart of Istanbul and the consequent disruption of the Gezi Park was followed by a violent and repressive reaction by the police forces that through the use of water cannons and gas tried to stop the protesters. This excessive use of police force found immediately a counter reaction in public opinion, with the protests soon becoming a widespread movement that cut across different parts of Turkey.

What started as a protest based on the protection of Gezi Park soon became a heterogeneous political movement rejecting political affiliations and without a clear leadership structure. ‘Everywhere is Taksim, resistance everywhere’ soon became the slogan chosen by large portions of the Turkish civil society and repeated thousands of times during the public protest as well as throughout the web space, spreading the resonance of what was happening in Turkey across the globe. During the Brazilian uprisings that exploded soon after Gezi, protesters chanted and re-tweeted the slogan ‘The love is over, Turkey is right here’ (Bevins 2013) , showing in this way a proximity between the movements and an important pattern of diffusion and reciprocal acknowledgment of the protest (Tuğal 2013).

Locating occupygezi as a global movement is therefore of great importance. The transnational dimension that characterizes the Gezi protests fits into the pattern of the movements that have been developed across the world before and after the events of Gezi Park. A resonance mostly based on the vindication of basic freedoms and rights: the right to public space, foremost, and linked to this, the rights to express dissent and to gain ownership of policy processes. In short, we witnessed a demand to establish forms of participatory democracy through the manifestation of bottom up expressions of active citizenship. Throughout assemblies, public exhibitions, public events, etc., different social groups came together in a unique laboratory of democracy where views, opinions and lifestyles were confronted, debated, and most importantly exchanged. In this regard, what is particularly important to note in the case of Gezi Park is the heterogeneous composition of the protesters. Even if it is worth noticing that in the course of development of the protest in itself, the composition of participants evolved on a daily basis (Ete and Taştan 2014), the key democratic element of Gezi movement brought together a new form of cross-cultural, cross-religious, cross-ethnic, cross-class and cross-gender solidarity (Kaya and Marchetti 2014), based on the respect of difference. Protesters promoted and applied a practice of deliberative democracy where they tried to ‘defend their lifestyles and basic rights of expression, freedom of speech and other democratic rights’ (Özkaynak et al. 2015, 102). Abbas and Yiğit (2014), focus on the spatial distribution of protesters during the Gezi protests, noticing the presence of at least three social groups, which are environmentalists, non-partisan and anarchists, and pointing out the fact that the second category was the most consistent and composed by people with ‘no specific political affiliation or explicitly political objectives’ (Abbas and Yiğit 2014, 70). Yörük and Yüksel (2014) second this, arguing that ‘the protests should be understood as a popular movement driven by political demands, in which all social classes participated proportionally’ (89).

The central features of the 2013 Gezi Park protest perfectly locate the movement in the wider set of occupy movements that have emerged throughout the world. From Brazil to Spain, from the US to Tunisia, from Greece to Hong Kong, these movements share the attempt of gaining ownership of the public space and to demand the right to democracy, throughout a set of claims based on alternative views of the characteristics of a democratic society.

According to Yörük and Yüksel (2014) we can categorize waves of occupy movements in light of at least three core streams (see also Tuğal 2013) The first one, characterizing movements such as Occupy Wall Street, Indignados in Spain and the anti-austerity Greek protests, can be seen as a reaction to neoliberal institutions and their responses to the financial crisis. What is particularly relevant in these cases is the clear expression of forms of transnational solidarity and dissent towards forces that are considered by the protesters to be neoliberal and non-democratic. A second category of protests, characterizes those movements that emerged during the so-called Arab Spring, but also in countries such as Hong Kong and Russia, where the challenge has been to subvert existing neoliberal and authoritarian regimes. These events have been characterized by calls for democracy and seen the emergence of new patterns of active citizenship. A third broad category, according to the authors, is one that includes movements cutting across countries such as Brazil and India where process of urbanization has been followed by levels of high corruption. As a reaction to this, youth movements have responded through different means. Whilst the Gezi Park protest could fit into the third category, it actually shows characteristics that, as the authors argue, fall into the second category, where the emphasis is on the emergence of an anti-authoritarian movement (Farro and Demirhisar 2014) that ideologically seeks to oppose to the dominant neoliberal logics and advocates for individual rights and freedoms.

What all these three protest-streams share in common, as Tuğal (2013) underlines, is the ‘emphasis on urban space through the occupation of public squares’ (158). Throughout these movements social problems have unfolded bringing to the surface the existence of a ‘breakdown in social capital and political trust’ (Abbas and Yiğit 2014, 61). The symbolic occupation of urban spaces, through the recognition of symbolic and identity related elements, provides evidence of the revival of bottom-up processes of appropriation of the social and cultural capital of the urban space, reviving in so doing the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1968) and countering processes of ‘privatisation, commodification and gentrification for the sake of global capital chains and speculative real estate developers’ (Benhabib 2014, 358).

If, as it has been argued above, occupygezi shares many commonalities with the occupy movements, on the other side, its impact can be best explained in light of domestic politics. In this context, the events characterizing the Turkish political arena are quite peculiar and offer interesting analytical insights that differentiate the movement from other countries. The economic backdrop suffered by the country in 2001, has produced a set of specific policy responses, which led Turkey to installing a set of radical neoliberal reforms (Bakir 2009) at the expense of the welfare state. As documented for example by Bakir, the economic resistance of Turkey to the financial crisis that hit the world from 2008 onwards shows evidence of a specific institutional rigidity that has focused ‘on the achievement of price stability and budget balance where employment, social welfare and industrial policies are delegated to a residual category’ (Bakir 2009, 82). It can thus be argued, that the reaffirmation of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP, Justice and Development Party) as the leading political party in the national elections of 2011 shows stability and acknowledgement of the economic model put forward to react to the 2008 crisis in the Turkish arena. However, if Turkey has structurally resisted the crisis, it has done so at the expense of the guarantee of social protection, with the result that in the medium run new social problems and political dissent are being generated.

The events linked to the Gezi Park protests, signify a political reaction to the domestic political arena and have nothing to do with the instability created by the European financial crisis. In this regard, we find a significant difference between occupygezi and the anti-austerity protests that took place, for example, in other Southern European countries such as Greece and Spain. This observation of the events happening in Europe is particularly important and offers another element of differentiation between the Gezi Park movement and other uprisings that took place during the Arab Spring, because of two important aspects: the Europeanization process is mirrored as an alternative to the authoritarianism represented by domestic institutions and the public’s voting behaviour is highly affected by a sound attachment to the traditional ideological orientations that dominate the socio-political arena of the country (Capelos and Chrona 2012). In this context, a number of analysts (Carkoğlu and Kentmen 2011; Kalaycioğlu 2011; Kaya 2013) have studied, from different angles the set of perspectives, ambivalences and implications of the Turkish pattern of Europeanization, providing emphasis of the widespread pro-Europeanism that has shaped Turkey throughout its negotiation process (Güneş-Ayata 2003). Therefore, it is rather important to underline one possible legacy of occupygezi, which is the reframing of pro-European attitudes. As Kaya and Marchetti (2013) note, different policy actors starting from the CHP , civil society organizations and traditionally Eurosceptic newspapers such as Sözcü and Cumhuriyet ‘have become more in favor of a socially, democratically and politically prosperous European Union’ (17).

On this regard, the cycle of Gezi protests has been seen as a reaction to authoritarianism and considered for its centrality in claiming opposition to the ruling party (Ete and Taştan 2014; Yörük and Yüksel 2014) and for affirming citizens’ right to public spaces (Karasulu 2014). Contrary to other occupy movements, the Gezi Park protests had as a specific target the authoritarian regime of the AKP. Yardımcı-Geyikçi (2014) looks into the structural formulation of the party structure in Turkey pointing out that the causes in the background of the protest are to be found in the ‘high degree of representation, which in turn has led to a crisis of representation’ (452). The construction of forms of active citizenship during Gezi represent a demand for increasing participatory democracy and for enlarging the basis for deliberative practices that have been absent from mainstream Turkish politics.

The symbolic dimensions of the protest as well as the cultural and social elements inherent to Taksim are pretty peculiar in shaping the right to the public space framework and the search for new democratic patterns for the country. In this regard, different cognitive and spatial elements are meaningful in shaping the protest, its means and specific claims. According to this, in discussing the symbolic value of urban places, scholars have been debating on the meaning of Taksim Square as a central focus of enquiry. The work of Gül, Dee, and Cünük (2014) in particular, looks at the historical importance of the place, remarking and unpacking cultural and ideological patterns that can be traced back to the Ottoman and Kemalist periods, when particularly in the latter Taksim Square was considered as a symbol of modernization. On this particular aspect, Karasulu notices that Gezi Park is one of the ‘public spaces in Istanbul which bears the mark of socio-political transformations in the Republic Turkey’ (2014, 166).

Therefore, the significance of occupygezi, lies in the reproduction of a social imaginary linked to the meaning associated to the public space, and on the establishment of new forms of communication, both online and offline. The expression of dissent through social media and the different calls for political mobilization that followed during the days of the occupation of Gezi Park is directly proportional to the foremost lack of coverage of the events by traditional media (Haciyakupoglu and Zhang 2015; Tunç 2015). Thus, the role played by social media during Gezi Park is crucial in establishing forms of connective action, as we argue below.

Social media and contentious politics

During the last decade social media networks have gained an important position in the individual and collective dimensions by affecting not only everyday life and interpersonal interactions, but also institutional structures and communications (Van Dijk and Poell 2013). Social media have been viewed as becoming prominent network agents of socio-political contention (Latour 2005; Segerberg and Bennett 2011). By having millions of active users they have infiltrated everyday life and started to play a significant role in the organization of social events gaining their role as a mobilizing structure of contentious action.¹ As Van Dijk and Poell (2013) suggest, social media logic has a direct impact on social activism. The mechanisms through which activists communicate, get organized, cooperate and express their dissent has been in fact changing due to the increasing usage of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) (Garrett 2006). This is exactly what we are now witnessing with a significant alteration. Nowadays, internet-based communication is seen as a vehicle that facilitates the abandonment of traditional organization agents of mobilization enabling the creation of more relaxed networks (Anduiza, Cristancho, and Sabucedo 2014; Bennett and Segerberg 2011; Bimber, Flanagin, and Stohl 2005) as opposed to the traditional ways of collective action.

The posts that appeared in the beginning on Facebook and Twitter were condemning the government for ‘hiding’ the events that were unfolding in Gezi Park. In the absence of mainstream national media coverage, social media became a powerful tool that empowered the protesters. Twitter and Facebook became quickly the means that facilitated quickly public mobilization. With the usage of social networks, what in the beginning was contained within the borders of the country was very quickly disseminated outside its borders. Interestingly, international media sources (such as CNN and BBC) were broadcasting pictures of the police brutality against protesters while national mainstream media were following their broadcasting schedule as normal (Amnesty International 2013).

Our take on the Gezi movement, is challenging the conceptualization of the movement as an example of collective action. Drawing upon the work of Bennett and Segerberg (2012), we suggest that Gezi Park is an example of connective action. We are interested in the dynamics that come to the fore when communication through social media networks becomes a vibrant part of the organizational structure of contentious action (Bennett and Segerberg 2012). The way that socially mediated networks have to become effective organizational agents relies effectively on the ability of social media to organize networks around general action frames that are broad and provide the space for personalization, which in turn bring together a diverse mix of individuals (Bennett and Segerberg 2011). We take the stance that social media did play a significant role as organizational agents in the case of Gezi, which had a great effect on the dynamics that unfolded during the days of the movement.

In our research we are interested in understanding the role that social media played in the emergence, development and outcomes of the Gezi Park movement. We also explore the key frames that emerge from the qualitative analysis of Facebook and Twitter content. In doing so, we look into the stream of posts that appeared on these two social media sources that appeared online in the period between May 2013 and August 2013. In particular we look at the content that appeared on the following Facebook groups: Gezi Solidarity, Diren Gezi Parki, and Taksim Solidarity. We also looked at Tweets that were posted during this period using the following hash-tags: #direngeziparki, #occupygezi, #direnturkiye, #direnistanbul #direndunya, #direnankara, #direnizmir, #DuranAdam.

Doing a discourse analysis we categorize the posts—including posts with word content and photos along with videos—into different streams such as: spread of news information, messages of solidarity from within the country, international solidarity and support, calls for participation in protests, opinionated and oppositional messages. Below we discuss the key themes and the public narratives that emerge from our analysis.

Discursive frames: Emerging trends from the analysis of social media

The key initial frame at the base of the nationwide mobilization was the one of environmental justice. A sense of indignation was generated by the decision of government officials to sustain Erdogan’s decision to demolish Gezi Park, therefore destroying one of the few green spaces left in the centre of Istanbul. Environmental justice as a general frame was raised very quickly for two key reasons. First was due to the way that the decision for the demolition of Gezi Park was taken and second due to the government’s unwillingness to take into account the oppositional voices that came forward from environmentalist groups (Amnesty International 2013, 6). The establishment and development of this frame in the early days of the protest is rather evident with widespread dissent expressed via social media and the formulation of different calls for mobilization.

In looking at the strength of mobilization, as Lim (2013) puts it, although framing plays a significant role, the expansion of the protests across a country is what really matters. In the case of Gezi Park between 31 May and 1 June demonstrations quickly expanded from Istanbul, to Ankara, Izmir, Antakya, Eskisehir, Tunceli, Bursa, Kocaeli, Samsun, Adana, Edirne, Samsun, Trabzon, Bursa and Kocaeli (Amnesty International 2013, 54). According to Tilly and Tarrow (2006) it is the dissemination of the messages of the movement that drives the protests to become more populated, consisting of a diverse mix of participants, denser in terms of the promotion of the key frames and long lasting. As shown in figure 1 the initial posting via social media is constituted by different widespread claims that can be categorized into three main dimensions that are linked one with the other: the initial claim for protecting the Park was strictly linked with a clear narrative emerging on Facebook on the protection of the public space. This was linked with an expression of dissent that clearly had a strong symbolic dimension relative to the value of Taksim as a cultural, social and symbolic public space embedding identitarian elements as well. The right to the public space is therefore, according to our analysis, a central discourse that is generated by the emergence of the environmental justice frame.

Figure 1. From Environmental to Social Justice.

The frame of environmental justice soon turned into a powerful claim for social justice. Explanations of the reasons of this process of transformation can be found in the police’s violent response to the demonstrators using tear gas, violence and destroying the tents of the protesters in the early days of Gezi. Also, another factor that led to the transformation of the broad opposition to the redevelopment plan of Istanbul, or in other words of the environmental claims into calls for social justice with all the above mentioned sub-frames, is the lack of coverage by national media in attempting to silence the early events.

Due to the absence of coverage by the mainstream national media from the early days of the protests, an alternative virtual space of communication was built via social media, with Facebook and Twitter becoming the only source of information in regards to the events in the area of Taksim. Because of their proximity with the area, a growing number of people who were witnessing the events and the use of police violence against the group of environmentalists, started expressing solidarity and reporting the happenings. Through the use of social media, protesters managed to raise awareness in regards to the early events of Gezi and the police’s excessive brutality, which led to an increase in the number of participants and which allowed the dispersion of the movement across the country.

As shown in figure 1 social justice at the individual level was expressed through the personalization of frames of anti-capitalism, anti-neoliberalism, anti-authoritarianism, individual freedoms, democracy and opposition to the government and the prime minister back in 2013, Recep Tayip Erdogan. The right to oppose the planned urban development changes and the consequent transformation of the public space in combination with the government’s authoritarian position towards the environmentalists and the approval of excessive force by the police in the early days enhanced significantly the strength of the Gezi movement and the grievances of social justice. The claim of the right to public space expressed in the early days of the protest, soon became a demand for democracy and individual rights, bringing to the fore a set of alternative views on the society.

Social media, however, did not only represent an alternative source of information, but also an important instrument of mobilization. A number of status updates expressing solidarity to the Gezi protestors, or invites to participate in the protests being organized in Gezi were posted and re-posted in individual Facebook accounts and Facebook groups that were created for Gezi. Similarly, through Twitter different key hash-tags were created, re-posted and shared continuously during the days of the events. Apart from the opinion posts, calls for participation and statements of solidarity the use of visuals also became an alternative means of framing simple posts that carried the ability to provoke emotional reactions to the audience.² For example the picture of the girl that was being attacked by the water cannon and which later became the symbol of occupygezi became key for establishing the social justice frame and the right to democracy and freedom narratives.

In addition is it worth noting that aside from the supporters of the movement there were also posts that were clearly against the Gezi happenings. For instance, in our analysis we came across posts and re-posts of government officials’ statements against protesters (containing the characterization of the protesters as looters, terrorists etc. ) that were diffused on Twitter and Facebook. Several individuals were openly opposing the protests by focusing on the destruction of the public spaces, but also supporting the government and the statements of the officials. In acknowledging the existence of opposing voices to the Gezi protests it is important to mention the role played by the government in the social media environment during the occupygezi days. There have been several claims arguing that during the events of Gezi the governing party AKP, used paid trolls whose aim was to steer and manipulate the discussions on Facebook and Twitter (Turkey Task Force 2014, 12).³ This of course raises an important ethical issue in regards to the nature of the discussion that emerged on social networks, as well as the function and impact of those trolls. Another important element concerns the role that the government played in censoring online communication via the participation of the paid trolls, that (once uncovered) is perceived as hurting its public face and power. We believe that on this particular issue there is currently a lack of empirical research and we raise the consequent need to explore it further.

Looking at the actual impact that Gezi Park had, a peculiar element that emerged from those protests is the level of attention and resonance it had outside of the Turkish borders, with various forms of solidarity expressed throughout social media and, at the same time, a mounting sense of indignation in respect to the attempts to repress the claims for public space and democracy by the police. Although it cannot be suggested that everyone who posted their support on Gezi participated in the protests it is undeniable that these posts assisted the spread of the Gezi message to reach a larger population and also go beyond the country’s borders. The diffusion of a large number of posts and re-posts of protests and gatherings that were organized in other countries supporting occupygezi has been rather prominent.⁴ These posts usually contained videos and photographic material, which were accompanied by statements of support towards the Gezi protesters. These protests were organized either by Turks that were living abroad or members of leftist groups that were supporting the protests in Istanbul and across Turkey. International support was drawn successfully and several protests were organized in EU countries expressing solidarity. Social media enhanced the message and made possible the spread of that message to a worldwide audience.

In the case of Gezi, people joined in the large protests that took place all across the country and abroad without sharing one single identity, or ideological orientation. The key issue that eventually became the symbol of the contentious action was the authoritarian governance of the AKP and the decisions of Erdogan to order the use of excessive force against the protesters. Therefore in the case of occupygezi we witnessed a diverse expression of individual grievances claiming the right to the city and participation in public policy decisions, but also individual rights and basic freedoms against the neoliberal and authoritarian mode of governance of the AKP. The protesters themselves formulated and developed these social calls for an alternative society that directed the Gezi movement without having in the driving seat any political organization or ideological orientation.

Conclusion

From a discourse analysis of the Facebook and Twitter posts during the events of Gezi, we see that social platforms played multiple roles in the Gezi movement. First they offered the space for disseminating information regarding the protests both at the national and international levels. Second they became a channel for communication amongst the protesters and those in support of the movement, which resulted in a large number of participants joining the demonstrations throughout the country. We also see that social media provided the space for promoting messages of solidarity to Gezi that came from the several protests that were organized across the world.

The Gezi Park events opened up the path for enhancing the democratic imaginary of Turkey and produced a national and international resonance that raised concerns on a number of important aspects of life in the country. The ecological claims that initiated the protests soon became calls for individual basic freedoms and rights such as the right to public spaces, involvement in policy processes, freedom of assembly and speech, but also a direct opposition to the government and its administration. The promotion of those claims from the protesters gave a twofold message directed both at the national socio-political environment and abroad. First the segment of the country’s population that is against the current government and its general plans have the will to react and claim its rights and freedoms, but also to fight openly decisions that go against the public will and which pose a threat to public life. And second, the government and its mechanisms are ready and willing to push back those claims and are not hesitant to use extreme violence and force.

To conclude, we echo the view of Göle (2013) who suggests that the Gezi movement signifies the public realization and will to claim, but also practice a new form of active citizenship that calls for greater democracy, individual rights and freedoms (7). We suggest that social media can and may have great potential in the organization of social movements and more research needs to be done in order to assess several parameters that result from the use of online networks for collective purposes.

One aspect that is important to examine is the extent to which connective action cases such as the Gezi movement are able to sustain their dynamic, but also to formulate and express explicit demands and have an explicit impact to the political agenda. An analysis into the results of the Gezi protests and the levels at which the protests influenced the cognitive understanding of the participants in regards to their power would allow us to shed light on the impact that Gezi had on the minds and the hearts of the Turkish public.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was supported by EEA Grants [grant number Marie Curie IEF 2013/ 625977].

Note on contributors

Stavroula Chrona is a PhD candidate and graduate teaching assistant in the Department of Politics, University of Surrey (UK). She holds an MA in International and European Politics from the University of Surrey and a BA in History from the University of Crete (Greece). In the past, she has held the position of (PT) lecturer in Quantitative Research Methods at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University (UK). She is a specialist in political psychology, electoral behaviour and public opinion. Currently she investigates the cognitive, affective and motivational processes of political behaviour. In particular, she examines the role of ideological inclinations, political sophistication, affect and emotion in the processes of information-processing, decision-making and motivated reasoning. She is also working on the areas of radicalization and political violence and the use of social media as a tool for political participation.

Cristiano Bee is an assistant professor at Kadir Has University. He was a Marie Curie Fellow at the European Institute of Istanbul Bilgi University where he was principal investigator in the research project ‘The Europeanisation of the organised civil society in Turkey. The case of youth organisations in the prospect of the European integration’ (EUROCS – EC 7FP MARIE CURIE IEF). He has published widely on the development of active citizenship in Europe, European public sphere and identity.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the editor of the special issue Ayhan Kaya for his valuable comments and feedback.

Notes

1. As McCarthy (1996) notes mobilization structures are those mechanisms that allow individuals to take part in collective action.

2. The use of images and videos has been common in several movements such as the Indignados (Anduiza, Cristancho, and Sabucedo 2014; Bennett and Segerberg 2012) and the Tunisian uprisings (Lim 2013). Following the same pattern, in Gezi images and videos were uploaded on YouTube, and shared on Facebook and Twitter. Just like in Spain where Indignados have developed an everyday online activity, in Turkey messages on Facebook and Twitter were uploaded throughout the day for the duration of the movement. Pictures from the events, individual thoughts and personal statements in regards to the developments of the day, invitations to attend a protest, statements of solidarity from abroad were appearing in the Gezi related Facebook groups and attached to the relevant hash-tags on Twitter.

3. For more on this there have been several news entries in several newspapers and blogs. A few examples are: “Pro-ruling party troll uncovered, daily claims”, TodayZaman, August 27, 2014; “Turkish ruling party's social media campaigners deny being a troll army”, The Independent, June 6, 2015.

4. Some of the countries in which we saw manifestations of solidarity to Gezi are: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Austria, USA (San Francisco, San Diego, New York City, Washington DC to name a few cities), Romania, Belgium, Switzerland, and Spain.