SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN LGBTQI MOVEMENTS IN TURKEY
SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN LGBTQI MOVEMENTS IN TURKEY

Author(s): Sinan Aşçı
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Media studies, Geography, Regional studies, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Civil Society, Communication studies, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: LGBTQI; Turkey; movements; gender; social media;
Summary/Abstract: To deepen our understanding of the relationship between social media and political movements since 2013 when Gezi Park Protests sparked as a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Turkey, events must have been situated in a larger context of media use and recent history of online activism. Since that day, the most successful social movements in Turkey were those using social media to expand networks of disaffected people, broker relations between activists, and globalize the resources. By this way, social media afforded those people the means to shape repertoires of contention, frame the issues, propagate unifying symbols, and transform online activism into offline protests. Because of being apparently excluded in all the forms of mass media, dissenting voices tend to form alternative spheres creating a different public sphere, a type of public sphere which is increasing the possibilities for a public articulation of experience. As a way of “survey research,” social media accounts of LGBTQI NGOs in Twitter, as an online public sphere, were observed in a meta analysis way. Data collected from this first-hand observation was evaluated with the help of content analysis techniques. The survey sample was designated with these accounts’ names, number of posts, followers, and other/optional information stated in the accounts specifically belonging to the platform. Based on the data, this chapter aims to analyze what LGBTQI individuals generate for resistance, and how they have used social media in their movements since 2013, precisely based on the use of social media platform mentioned above during Pride Weeks in subjected years. The findings shed light on the social media use and habits of LGBTQI communities.

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