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Abstract
Gezi Park Resistance is widely accepted as a turning point in the role and power of social media in Turkey. I will attempt to substantiate this major claim by tracking several aspects of online activism. I take online activism in the broadest level, including notable non-profit cases with a social mission. This inclusion inevitably includes citizen journalism networks (140Journos, DokuzSekiz Haber) but also several mapping projects (Mülksüzleştirme, DirenÇevre), digital literacy mobilizations, such as crypto-parties (İstanbul Hackerspace), and their possible integration to political mainstream (special attention is given to pro-Kurdish HDP party volunteers, or election volunteers, Oy ve Ötesi). I intend to bring a more pro-active approach. That is, instead of dealing web censorship and digital surveillance at the center of paper, I will contextualize them in the background while focusing on citizens’ claim of the web as a place of freedom of expression and opposition. While doing this, I will track cases before and after Gezi Resistance and will try to determine whether there is a substantive change or continuity. However, my major focus will be the aftermath and I will opt for a semi-ethnographic approach (with a perspective of multi-sited ethnography) in addition to discourse analysis. I have been involved in many of the digital emergences, continued to organize citizen journalism seminars not only in İstanbul but in some other major cities in Turkey and I have tracked digital emergences as part of my jury work at Deutsche Welle Best of Online Activism annual awards. Still, I did not act as an organic intellectual in many instances but followed discussions which could be framed as a public debates among Gezi related citizens. Thus ethnographic work will be merged with a study of partial history of thoughts approach.
Notes
1. For a substantive discussion of digital activism see Joyce (Citation2010).
2. As the last Twitter Transparency report demonstrates Turkey is indeed a showcase in web censorship (2016). How Turkey Became The Top Censor Of Twitter Accounts ... Retrieved March 6, 2016, from http://www.buzzfeed.com/burcukarakas/how-turkey-became-the-top-censor-of-twitter-accounts-worldwi.
3. For detailed information on the March, see: https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0nternetime_Dokunma!.
4. Yapı Kredi Publications published several articles on Ekşi Sözlük within the Cogito Special Issue 30 in 2002. The titles of these articles were as follows – listed by page order: Ertürk, İ. ”İnternet ve Ekonomik Etkileri”; Tanyon, T. “Anarşizm ve İnternet”; Ekinci, A. “Aziz Antonius’un Baştan Çıkarılması: Bir Kötü Alışkanlık Olarak İnternet”; Uğur, A. “Ekşi Sözlük: Ne Kadar Ekşi, Ne Kadar Sözlük?”; Geyisi, E. “Hede Hödöler Ne Yerler Ne İçerler / Ekşi Sözlük Üzerine”; Köse, S. “Sosyal Psikoloji Bağlamında Ekşi Sözlük: Bir Söylem Analizi”; and Tanaydın, M. 2002. “Ekşi Kum Sözlük Kitabı”.
5. Karen Schubert (Citation2003) describes Internet meme as such: “An Internet meme is an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry, from person to person via the Internet”.
6. Bobiler does not have a particular meaning. The founders started a blog with this playful but meaningless title. The blog would evolve to be a major digital production site. More information on Bobiler can be obtained from the “Ethics in New Media: Bobiler.org” article, authored by Bülent Küçükerdoğan and Deniz Yengin, published within the Visualist 2012 Conference Proceedings book.
7. Ergenekon were a series of trials in which high level military officials, journalists etc. were trialed. They were accused to be members of an alleged secularist organization, Ergenekon that aimed to initiate a coup d’état to overthrow ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). For more information, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergenekon_trials.
8. For information on Ekşi Sözlük, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ek%C5%9Fi_S%C3%B6zl%C3%BCk.
9. For detailed information on 2011 Van earthquake, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Van_earthquake.
10. See the list of banned Kurdish social media accounts compiled by Kerem Sözeri: https://medium.com/@efekerem/turkey-declares-war-on-isis-censors-kurdish-news-instead-3f30a9e5264f.
11. To watch the interview, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBt5WDk3X9A.
12. 2015. 'Oy ve Ötesi' aims for fair election results, and beyond ... http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/oy-ve-otesi-aims-for-fair-election-results-and-beyond.aspx?PageID=238&NID=82369&NewsCatID=497.
13. See the map created by a group of HDP supporters here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=z-Sr_YwM2DWI.kfMAqYGz3Ueg.
14. See the data-set compiled by Kerem Sözeri on Google Spreadsheets here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1IpmmBV7KGolJvyvntUqW03-Xw7D35pZmdoXqIAljOFM/edit#gid=126082420.
15. See one of the mapping attacks against HDP and other political parties here: https://www.google.com/fusiontables/DataSource?docid=1HOo6pja9V8ymvuEul3qbPsjosvrB4kEF3JmDqt9s#map:id=4.
16. See one of the tactical visuals here: https://twitter.com/Emrah_Altindis/status/588364553135730688.
17. Ushahidi, Inc. is a non-profit software company that develops free and open-source software (LGPL) for information collection, visualisation, and interactive mapping. Ushahidi (Swahili for “testimony” or “witness”) was created a website in the aftermath of Kenya's disputed 2007 presidential election […] collecting eyewitness reports of violence reported by email and text message and placed them on a Google Maps map. The organisation uses the concept of crowdsourcing for social activism and public accountability, serving as an initial model for what has been coined as “activist mapping”—the combination of social activism, citizen journalism and geospatial information. Ushahidi offers products that enable local observers to submit reports using their mobile phones or the internet, while simultaneously creating a temporal and geospatial archive of events.
18. See for an exemplary visualization: https://twitter.com/bulentceyhan/status/602761438214692864.
19. See for word clouds compiled: http://jiyan.org/2015/05/06/parti-programlarini-kelime-bulutu-yaptik-secim2015/.
20. See for the Google Document: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ms0xX6ahV-FbgLJ49hI9DyN42FG5l6Pukwh6oCtNyjo/viewform.
21. I use assemblage as a unit of social analysis as presented in Marcus and Saka (Citation2006) which is in turn inspired by Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophical conceptualizations (Dewsbury Citation2011). Assemblage is a temporary and heterogeneous formation consisting of class, ethnicity, gender, material conditions and some other elements that may not be included in traditional understandings of a unit of analysis.
22. 2015. Turkey proposes tighter internet law, pursues Twitter critic ... http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/22/us-turkey-internet-idUSKBN0KV1Y720150122.