Keeping It Peaceful: Twitter And The Gezi Park Movement

Author ORCID Identifier

Fatih Demir:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0660-3737

Publication Title

Communication and the Public

E-ISSN

20570481

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Over the last decade, social media platforms have become the leading communication tools for activists and protesters all over the world. Understanding protesters’ motivations and reasons for using social media is a challenging issue for researchers. In this article, we analyzed the use of Twitter during the anti-governmental protests in Istanbul that was launched in May 2013. We examined 13,794 tweets posted to the #direngeziparki hashtag over a 6-day period. Based on the results of a qualitative content coding of the tweets, we found that the Twitter platform was widely used to mobilize protesters, share information about the events, and express opinions about the policing of the protests. We argue that social media can help keep protests peaceful by preventing vandalism, informing the protesters about extremist or violent groups participating in the protests, and can help them to avoid engaging in violent acts against police forces.

First Page

149

Last Page

163

Publication Date

10-5-2020

DOI

10.1177/2057047320959852

Keywords

Hashtags, protest policing, social media, social movements, Twitter

Department

Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment (ETRA)

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS