Role of Internet in a Social Movement: Gezi Protests and Occupy Wall Street

Communication has always been a crucial part of the existence of human beings. Being able to communicate as a group increases the chance of survival and allows groups to have better living conditions. Through time, this instinct we have as human beings made us look for different and accessible ways to communicate and brought us to the age of the internet. The way we communicate transformed and this transformation shaped us and our societies in an extensive way. These changes in social structures and in communication channels forced people into using new tools to express ideas and to get together for a cause. The Internet changed the way people organize and rebel against injustices. In the last decade, the internet became one of the key elements for social movements and protests. It changed the formation of movements from its roots and as every change did in the past, it raised questions. 

Movements and revolutions are a huge part of our social history, therefore, have key importance for Sociology. The movements are created by the society therefore understanding the movements is a necessity to understand the society. This assignment tries to focus on the newly emerging way of starting movements and turning them into revolutions. In his book “Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age”, Manuel Castells explores new types of protests and social movements that have happened and still happening in the world. He focuses on how these protests and social movements have developed with the help of the internet and different communication systems and analyses the importance of the internet for the movements. In this essay, I will examine how the internet and its social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and many more, started social movements and how other traditional platforms were a necessity as well as the internet was; where the importance of the internet stands for the movements compared to the effectiveness of public space and the human body and the possible negative effects of using the internet as the main social space for the movements. I will be considering several ideas of different theorists in addition to Manuel Castell’s work. 

Throughout the history of social movements and protests, people asked for the change because of many different reasons and in many different ways. There was one thing in common that they all did, they fought for what they believed by using every tool that was under their belt. Social and political movements needed to form a strong network in order to exist and act. Every protest and social movement in history was made possible by coming together of people and having the platform to talk about what is wrong in their country, community, their workplace, and even in their streets. Being able to reach as many people as possible has always been crucial for movements to reach success. More people meant more support and being stronger. Becoming one against governments and the injustices needs a tremendous amount of organizational skills and communication networks. Internet was one of the many tools that were used by the people for their cause. In this part, I will examine how the internet was not the only social space that was used to reach people during the Egyptian revolution and the other platforms used during the movement that gave the protestors a chance not all countries got during their battle. 

Tunisian revolution that overthrow the government, Iceland’s protests that were triggered by the financial crises and the way the government was handling it, the Egyptian revolution against the corrupted government, events that took place in Spain during 2011, occupy wall street and its global impact, Gezi park movement that took place in Turkey, protests that started against the increased prices of public transportation in Brazil and the student movement in Chile. All these revolutions and movements have common aspects with each other as well as with other events that took place during history. Economic reasons, police brutality, corruption in governments, fight for equality… What makes them significantly different than the rest of history is the way these movement networks used the internet to communicate with each other, with the world, and to exist in a social space.

Internet was new in the scene of movements, it made spreading information easier than it has ever been but was it enough to reach as many people as possible? The internet allowed these movements to be born and also to have a global impact but was it only the internet which turned the movement to a revolution? Was it enough to reach all of the community and educate people on the cause? Does the internet reach to every household and is it trusted by all members of society? 

Egyptian revolution did not rely solely on the power of the internet to bring people together for the cause. The revolution, with no doubt, is one of the most important revolutions that shows how a smartly organized network and the usage of the internet brought together people to have a change in the country. The spark which started the Egyptian protest was a vlog that was shot by a university student. This sparked become something with help of the youth movements and the help of the Facebook groups. However, later on, the part of the society that didn’t have the ability to reach the internet platforms were informed in different ways. It was important to reach to a wider audience. Egyptian youth were lucky because Friday sermons were great for the cause. Fridays, (which first became part of the culture due to religious beliefs but now it is more than that, it allows people to get together and have the opportunity to socialize) since it was a holiday, was crucial to reach to the society older generation and inform them about the events. It also helped to gain more support for the demonstrations against the government. It was a huge part of the construction of a network among the public. Activists had the space to talk to people from firsthand and reach to an audience that was more diverse. This helped gain more trust towards the protests and allowed the activists to reach to more people. The other platform that helped the revolution tremendously was the television broadcast. According to my point of view, even though the Egyptian revolution start to gain a voice by the help of the internet and the Friday sermons, the most powerful source they had was the media network Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera broadcasted the events to the whole world and to Egypt by firsthand and stand with the protesters to the very last day. It gives the protesters to have the chance to be heard from many countries. Al Jazeera’s stand during the protests as a channel was also really important for the public. 

Still to this day, television broadcast is highly influential for the majority of the people all around the world. Internet and social media are not seen as reliable as television is and television is capable of reaching more audiences. To argue that television broadcast gave the activists a major platform during Egyptian Revolution, I will mention another movement that did not have the same type of platform and support. The events that took place in Turkey in 2013, which is named as Gezi protests have qualities in common with the Egyptian revolution. Gezi protests started as a youth movement as well as the Egyptian revolution did and then got support from the other groups of the society. Both of the movements used the internet efficiently in order to communicate and to tell the world what they are protesting for. Both used the internet as a platform to broadcast what is happening in the streets from firsthand. This was crucial to bring attention to their cause and to show the world how their government was handling the protests. What made Gezi protestors did not have was the help that Egypt got from the media network Al Jazeera. During the most violent days of the Gezi protests, the biggest and most influential tv channels were not broadcasting anything regarding the protests. People who did not have immediate access to the internet, mainly social media, had no information regarding a huge protest that was happening in the center of the biggest city of the country that they live in. They were not informed about the majority of the protests and the extreme police brutality. 

The national public broadcaster of Turkey that is funded by the taxes, which is known as TRT, broadcasted a penguin documentary at the night when the protests got really heated which later became of the symbols of the oppressed media in the country. After the events spread through the whole country, TV channels did start broadcasting but the news took the side of the government and portrayed protestors as the government wanted. People who were following the news regarding the protests through the Turkish media were only accessing limited information which was strictly controlled by the government. This caused a huge split in the country and the protests failed to have the support of the majority of the society therefore the government had the power to portray the protestors as terrorists and gained the support of almost half of the public against the protests. The importance of other social platforms such as community gatherings and television broadcasts is still highly influential and therefore crucial for the movements to gain success. Living in the internet age does not mean every single person has the access to it and embraced it as a reliable source of information. It is a fact that the internet plays a major role for the movements that emerged in the last decade by creating a platform where the movement can freely exist in its reality but is it the most important one? 

In this part of my essay, I will examine where the importance of the control of public space and the human body stands for the social movements that were born in the digital world. Occupy movement (which started as Occupy Wall Street and spread through the globe) is a great example of the combination of the use of both public space and the internet wisely in order to carry the movement to success. Occupy wall street is a movement that was initiated on the internet and continued to grow online during the protests. The online interaction on the topic was extremely high and the related content was all around the social media platforms. The movement gained voice via online platforms and raised serious attention to the subject with the help of social media. It started with a hashtag and was identified with the hashtag. The hashtag that started the movement -#occupywallstreet- was a literal call to occupy Wall Street. 

However, the movement kept growing online for months before the first public demonstration took place. The demonstration of occupying wall street (and many other spaces around the world after the movement became global) was trying to show that the places that were occupied by the people had already belonged to the occupiers. The movement had more than one aim in its own nature but the occupation of the streets and parks of the Wall Street district was both strategically and symbolically crucial for the movement. In his book “Networks of Outrage and Hope”, Manuel Castells examines these events while focusing on their intense use of the internet as a platform for the movement. To challenge the idea that the internet provides the best social space to movements, I will mention David Harvey’s work on the importance of public space for movements. While Castells brings attention in his work to how the movement was born and evolved digitally and was dependent on the internet in many aspects, as well as to have the organization to occupy the public space, Harvey argues that the most important platform for the Occupy movements is the people in body and the ownership of the space. 

In his blog post “The Party of Wall Street Meets its Nemesis”, David Harvey argues the importance of public space by writing: … the tactics of Occupy Wall Street are to take a central public space, a park or a square, close to where many of the levers of power are centered, and by putting human bodies there convert public space into a political commons, a place for open discussion and debate over what that power is doing and how best to oppose its reach… It shows us that the collective power of bodies in public space is still the most effective instrument of opposition when all other means of access are blocked. He claims that taking a part in the movement in person, taking a public space under control as a whole, and using that public space as a platform during the movement is the most important act for success. However, Castells explains the achievements of the Occupy movement with the successful use of internet networks. According to Castells, “Internet social networks mobilized enough support for people to come together and occupy public space, territorializing their protest”. 

The websites and Facebook groups that were created “…served as sites to organize the movement, but also to create a public presence for it.”. He also adds that this creation was crucial for the movement’s aims and clarity. It is clear that both the role of public space and the internet was huge for the movements to grow however, it is possible to say that taking control of public space is more effective on governments since it causes an undeniable disruption in everyday life and requires immediate action. We established that it is inevitable to use social media platforms (if they are accessible in the country) for the movements that are forming in this age. 

In order to answer the question of the importance of the internet for social movements, we need to explore the way that it might be harmful to the movements as well. It is a fact that the internet is a platform that allows us to reach people from all around the world and gives us access to information instantly. This means it also allows us to support a movement or a protest that is taking place on the streets from the place of our choice which is usually a safe and warm environment. According to many theorists, this reality of the internet age devalues the importance of the movement and causes a negative impact. In their article; “Internet and Social Movement Action Repertoires” that was published in the Information, Communication & Society journal, Jeroen Van Laer and Peter Van Aelst bring attention to this reality of the internet which is referred to as ‘keyboard activism’. They claim that this type of activism; “…may go at the expense of real actions that demand a higher commitment. People might not feel motivated to engage in higher threshold actions as they can more easily pursue social and political change by clicking on a button and watching some ads. These online versions of traditional actions…might damage the policy impact of civil society.” The Internet makes it easier to reach people and get support but the support of millions on the internet is not seen as valuable as the support of thousands on the streets. In his book “Tweets and Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism”, Paolo Gerbaudo criticizes the use of one of the social media platforms by the activists, claiming that: “Using Twitter, activists entered into emotional conversations with sympathizers, sustaining a diffuse sense of solidarity. Only a few of these sympathizers actually joined the occupation, however, testifying to the difficulties involved in turning sympathy into actual participation” While the fact that internet enables the movement to reach millions, it still devalues the support that is given to the movement since it tends to not turn into solid action. 

To conclude, in this time it is not possible to separate the internet from a social movement. However, the movements, that I mentioned in this essay, were still trying to use other platforms as widely as possible. This was crucial to reach to a wider audience and to be more stable. A revolution was made possible by reaching to people in the public spaces and making the globe watch what is happening through television broadcast. The Egyptian revolution proved us how important this was for a movement to turn into a revolution. Other movements which were not capable of creating these opportunities couldn’t achieve their goals. It is not denied that a movement can start and grow on the internet and use the internet to organize an occupation of public space but it is important to acknowledge that the occupation act itself is what carries it the movement to success. The influence of the occupation of public space is more significant to governments and it forces the governments to act. Additionally, this major change in the way people start and grow a movement raised many questions and caused debates over the use of the internet for a social or political cause. The accessibility of the internet made it easier to show support for a cause and gave people to chance to act on internet platforms instead of a public space which devalued the support that was given. There were millions on the internet but only thousands on the streets. Revolutions still happen on the streets. It is possible to spark the change on the keyboard, but will it ever be enough to finish it?