Gezi Park Protests & the Boom-Bust Cycle of Social Media-Fueled Protest

1. Gezi Park Protests & the Boom-Bust Cycle of Social Media-Fueled Protest Zeynep Tufekci @zeynep

2. Internet and Collective Action • So far, often emphasized: • Lower coordination costs • Attention and publicity • Shaping of narrative • Overcoming pluralistic ignorance • Criticisms: • Slacktivism • Surveillance • Censorship & propaganda

3. Big Questions for Movements • Why do people protest? • Free rider problem? • Resources? • Do protests matter? • Political opportunity structures? • Political mediation?

4. Common Themes of Analysis • Does activism count if it is not about «the streets...» • Was it Facebook [Twitte/Skype] or was it the people?

5. My Proposal: • Stop looking so much at outputs of social-media fueled protests, start looking at their role in capacity building. • Stop using online/offline as the axis of analysis, start looking at protests as one form of signaling, among many.

6. Gezi, a short history

7. Once upon a time, there was this:

8. And it was a lonely bit of green

9. And Prime Minister Erdogan wanted to turn it into this:

10. Some people, mostly from the neighborhood, did not like this.

11. Then, this happened to their small protest

12. Some people thought it was a sign of this:

13. Meanwhile government friendly TVs (almost all of them) broadcast this:

14. So people got upset and took to Twitter and to the streets

15. After multi-day clashes in the area, coordinated and spread almost solely on social media...

16. ...Gezi Park was occupied!

17. So, I packed up my gear

18. And went to Gezi Park to interview & observe...

19. Gezi Context • 11-year single party reign • Polarized country • Ineffective opposition • Barriers to new opposition (electoral system) • Fears of growing outreach and authoritarianism

20. Findings: Smurf Village!

21. Occasionally, Gargamel visits

22. Woodstock meets Paris Commune

25. «One No, Many Yes»es

26. Heterogeneous Coalition

27. Free Rider What?

28. Costs were real

29. Costs were paid

30. Grievances, as voiced by Gezi occupiers: • Growing authoritarianism • Media censorship • Police brutality

31. Internet’s Role • Break Media Censorship • Construct Counter-narrative • Logistics and Coordination

32. I. Break media censorship

33. I. Media, Media • Add pic of fridge turning into TV

34. I. Media, Media

35. I. Media, media

36. I. Social Media

37. I. Twitter

38. II. Protest Coordination & Internet • Significant real time coordination • For the most part, internet worked • Local businesses turned on Wi-Fi • Internet modems • Text to others who then tweeted • Walk to place with internet

39. II. Counter Narrative Construction • Youth/internet culture • Humor oriented • Spread on/through/ social media • Very much on display in Gezi itself

40. Leadership • Much was coordinated without much centralization • No central leadership with delegation authority--though a meta-organization (Taksim Solidarity) was formed, it often followed, not led, what was happening.

41. Gezi Dispersed • Brutal dispersion • Moves to neighborhood forums

42. Neihborhood Forums

43. Impact? • To understand impact (and the boom-bust cycle of social media-fueled protests) first let look at capacity building as a concept, and then to capacities built and made less necessary by Internet affordances.

44. Capacity Building • Amatyra Sen introduces into development economics • Look at capacity, not outputs as key variable • For example, instead of GDP look at literacy or heath--health is capacity to do things as well as an output. • What can/what are people empowered to do?

45. Internet and Capacity Building • Internet adds new capacities but also undermines others (often by rendering them less necessary) • Thus, Internet’s impressive capacity building in some aspects is matched with capacity destruction/negligence in others • And that helps explain the trajectories of social-media fueled movements—overgrown capacities in some aspects (logistics coordination), trophied, neglected capacities in others that were, sometimes,side-effects of capacity building for things that are no longer needed.

46. Protests: Conceptual Notes • Dampen online/offline conceptually (but do NOT forget in affordances—bits and atoms ARE different, the new ecology is different) • Also, separate «citizenship» protests (civil rights, or those in authoritarian countries) and «post-citizenship» protests (Occupy, M15, and, to a large degree, Gezi)

47. What Do Protests Need? • Resource Mobilization: Need resources for protest call, coordination, organization • Political Opportunity Structures: An moment in political structure that creates perceived opening

48. Capacity Building in Protest Resources • Internet Enables lower, much lower barriers of necessary resources for protest: • Protesters are easier to call for, organize, and support logistically • Protest online (hashtag campaigns, petitions, etc) even lower • Protest offline also can arise semi-spontaneously and be managed in ways that would have been almost impossible before. • Need for central authority, infrastructure etc. less necessary, almost optional

49. Capacity Building in Political Opportunity Structure • Political Opportunity Structures Depend on Perception and Agency • Social Movements Can Create Political Opportunity Structures... See the Tea Party (Have we defaulted yet?)

50. What Do Protests Do? • They Grab Attention • Highlight cause, grievances • Put forth narrative/counter narrative • They Promote Social Interaction among protesters • Homophily building • Meet, greet, bond for future (especially in face of repression) • They Reveal Information • «I’m not the only one» • Break pluralistic ignorance • They Signal • Protests signal capacity • «We are here and we have capacity for dissent»