draft paper: digitally-mediated organisation, communicative hybridity and dataveillance in...

7/22/2019 DRAFT PAPER: Digitally-mediated Organisation, Communicative Hybridity and Dataveillance in Contemporary Soci

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Conference Paper: Digitally-mediated Organisation, Communicative Hybridity and

Dataveillance in Contemporary Social Movements - A Media Practice Approach To The Gezi

Park Protests

Author: Mark Bergfeld

Affiliation: Queen Mary School of Business and ManagementContact:mdbergfeldATgmailDOTcom

Web:www.mdbergfeld.com

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Theoretical Background

2.1. Digital Organisations?

2.2. The shock of the new?

2.3. Toward Communicative Hybridity

2.4. A media practice approach for social movements

3. Beyond the Hashtags? A Reading of the Gezi Park Protests3.1. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

3.2. Will the Revolution be Tweeted?

3.3. Different Medias, Different Messages

3.4. Dataveillance Considered

4. Conclusion4.1. Alternatives from Below and from Within the Mainstream

4.2. Some considerations on the Regime Crisis

5. Bibliography

DO NOT QUOTE WITHOUT THE AUTHORS PERMISSION


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1. IntroductionErdogan has been ruling the Turkish state for the last decade. His rule is hegemonic in the

true sense of the word. His use of Islamic-conservative values has successfully tied insections of the popular classes. His alliances with business men and capitalist entrepreneurs

have helped to finance the party. In turn, high levels of economic growth have left some

crumbs for those at the bottom of Turkish society.

When a group of environmental activists sought to defend one of the only green areas in

downtown Istanbul from being turned into a shopping mall on May 30, 2013, little did they

know that their protest would spiral into the most serious popular uprising in modern Turkish

history. Peoples from all ethnic, religious and political background articulated themselves and

their demands through the social movement in an unprecedented way. Activists used social

media like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr as the mainstream media failed to report their

actions and the violent police crackdown. Activists and supporters went beyond the use of

hashtags in order to undermine Erdoans AKP and create radical alternatives from below.Unfortunately they were not able to break Erdogans hegemony. In many ways, Erdogan wasable to continue to rule in the same way. Even his remarks that the Gezi protests were aforeign plot did not necessarily harmhim or the AKP.

By December 2013, the corruption scandal surrounding Turkeys AKP government andPrime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had developed into a full-fledged regime crisis. In one week

alone, more than 24 people had been arrested including the CEO of Halk Bank who had kept

more than $4.5million in laundered money in shoe boxes. Erdogan might have replaced ten

(out of 26) government ministers but the crisis neared him with rapid pace.

The current state of research into social movements and their media is characterized by an

over-emphasis on the novel aspects of digital communications technologies such as Twitter

and Facebook (Castells 2012; Mason 2011; Penny 2010; Juris et al 2013). The debates have

focused on how these technologies have rendered organisations obsolete (Mason 2011, Penny

2010), or changed their form (Chadwick 2007).

In the existing literature I identify a network-organisation dichotomy. This has arisen in the

analyses of the more recent 'Facebook and Twitter revolutions' and social movements of the

Arab world, the indignad@s in the Spanish state and the Occupy movement in the US

(Graeber 2013, Juris 2013, Mason 2011). This paper seeks to address the continuities,

linkages, and tensions between so-called old and new repertoires of communicationarising in contemporary activism and social movements and their media in the Turkish

context. It seeks to do so through using the media practice approach (Hobart 2010, Barassi

(forthcoming); Trev 2012, McCurdy 2011, Cummaerts 2013, Couldry 2004, Postill &

Bruchler 2010) as a theoretical and analytical tool to understand activists use of media, andwhether these practices facilitate new organisational paradigms.


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The literature and debates reveal that the forms of digitally-mediated collective (formal or

informal) organisation which activists adopt in social movements remains a black box.

Theorisations such as organisational hybridity (Chadwick 2007) or networked web oforganisation (Sitrin 2012) do not reveal the extent to which contemporary social movements

have become laboratories of different forms of digitally-mediated organisations andorganisational practices and perhaps even new organisational paradigms.

One facet which is completely absent from any discussion on digitally-mediated forms of

organisation and the use of new communication technologies such as Facebook and Twitter

in contemporary social movements is the question of online surveillance vis--vis

Dataveillance. This is of particular importance when discussing activist media practices in the

Turkish context given Erdogans repeated attempts to curtail Internet freedom. At time ofwriting, Erdogan had just banned Twitter

2.

Theoretical BackgroundIn this section I will give an overview of the context and theoretical debates which inform our

current understanding of how social movements make use digital technologies, and social

media. This will involve a discussion on the extent to which new organizational paradigms

are facilitated, and why an activist media practice approach can enhance our understanding of

the Gezi Protests and perhaps reconfigure pre-established narratives on the Facebook and

Twitter revolutions of 2011.

2.1. Digital organisations?

I identify the prevalence of a new organisational paradigm in the debates on contemporary

movements. In their popular book Multitude, Michael Hardt and Toni Negri propose the

notion of the multitude and the appearance/disappearance of swarms to describe thealter-globalisation movement and its participants (2005). While the latter concept grappled

with a temporal-delineated form of organisation inside these movements, Hardt and Negri did

not have any empirical evidence to back up their claims; or how these actors related to

different technological objects, and/or the mainstream media. This can only be achieved by

focussing on individuals and collectives; and an analysis of how their daily lives and social

movement practices intertwine with digital technologies.

The anthropologist Jeffery Juris accounted for the use of different online media and the

horizontal relationships it created between activists. Dispersed activists from diverseideological background would use the newest digital technologies such as e-mail lists and

alternative networks of communication. Juris based his insights on what he labels thecultural logic of networking and decentralized organisational forms (2008:15). This washighlighted by the anti-WTO protests in Seattle which had no centre or command-structure.

His anthropological sensitivities and research method of militant ethnography focus on

participants' actions, events and moments within these movements as he was part of the

discussions and coordination on the e-mail lists (Juris 2008, Juris 2013). Juris only accounts

for the novel aspects within these movements rather than seeking to draw out the ways inwhich activists negotiate tensions between old and new repertoires of communication


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(Mattoni, 2013) within social movements; and how digital mediation might facilitate changes

the way that activists consciously adopt different media strategies and change organisational

practices in front of different audiences in order to render themselves visible.

2.2. The shock of the new?

More recently communications scholar Manuel Castells has written in a very similar vein:

the networked social movements of the digital age represent a new species of socialmovement (2012: 5) Juriss emphasis on the novel aspects of contemporary socialmovements thus reflects a wider trend within cross-disciplinary writings on transnational

social movements (della Porta 2007; Tarrow 2005). The labels attached to the dominant

practices within social movements range from horizontal (Sitrin 2006, Sitrin & Azellini2012, Mason 2011, Blumenfeld 2012), decentralised (Juris et al 2013), leaderless (Penny2010, Castells 2012), demandless (Dean 2012; Graeber 2009, 2013), and networked(Juris 2008, Chadwick 2007, Castells 2012). The current state of research does not disclose

the linkages and tensions between the old and the new, and to what extent new and old

practices intertwine and overlap through the use of technological objects such as mobile

phones from which one can send photos to ones followers on Twitter. Moreover, thetensions that activists experience can only be accomplished through engaging in case studies

(in this case the Occupy Gezi protests in Turkey) which seek to understand the tension

between activists everyday use of digital technologies, how they seek to use thesetechnologies in the process of contention and organisation, and the media environment they

embed themselves in.

The debates and discussions have centred on how digital and even corporate-owned networkshave replaced so called old organisations altogether (Shirky 2008, Mason 2011, Penny2010). These theorisations pay little to no attention to the continuities between the past and

present and cannot explain to what extent organisations and their practices are constantly in

flux, arenas of contestation. They also do not explain how individual activists are part of

networks, groups of activists and even pre-existing organisations (both formal and informal)

beyond the quest for collective action. New uses of communication technologies, the Internet

and social media have yet to replace organisations which also act offline, or even through

organising structures such as spokes councils or general assemblies, working groups, tightly-

knit affinity groups which rose to prominence in the social movements like the indignad@s

and Occupy Wall Street. The promise of these writers is yet to be fulfilled.

2.3. Toward communicative hybridity?

A distinct strand of literature has developed inside academia. This has sought to analyse

activists' use of social media as situated activity, or in a more functional manner (Aouragh

and Alexander, 2011; Gerbaudo 2012). Aouragh and Alexander show that Egyptian activists

used social networks such as Twitter and Facebook as tools of mobilisation and spaces ofdissidence (2011). Through the use of semi-structured interviews with Egyptian, Spanish,and American activists Gerbaudo identifies Twitter as a prime means for internal

coordination between activists and Facebook as a recruitment platform where activists


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could recruit non-political contacts such as friends and family to their cause (2012:17). These

accounts have made a valuable contribution to the field however they do not explore the

tensions which exist between old and new forms of grassroots political communication,

activist media practices and new organisational paradigms within activist communities. Thus,

I would suggest that the national particularities such as the media environment activistsembed themselves in and different technologies are not all used in the same way must inform

the way we make sense of activists media practices. Lastly, they do not account for whyactivists seemingly use these technologies all in the same way.

This could potentially be answered by understanding the way activists use these technologies

in their daily lives and how they generalize and share mediated collective practices when they

do not mobilise. This is underlined by Jacob Blumenfeld: "[t]hese struggles are generalizing

not ideologies, but practices" (2012: 244). Refocussing on how research subjects embed

themselves in a media environment, information ecology and make use of overlapping

technologies could contribute to the current state of research.

I would further argue that pre-existing organisations are in the process of developing new

repertoires of communication and making sense of how the offline and online inter-relateand are constituent of one another. Andrew Chadwick's proposition that the Internet and

digital communication technologies had a profound effect on traditionally hierarchical

organisations such as political parties can deepen our understanding what effect these

communication technologies and practices have on organisations.

He observes that organisations now operate and switch back and forth between online and

offline. He labels this the digital repertoire of contention and organisational hybridity(2007:284) based on Charles Tilly's notion of repertoire of contention (2006). This mighthelp us to understand how political parties such as the US Democratic Partys adopted formsof contention from social movements, and how their media practices were augmented rather

than transformed through the use of the Internet. By arguing that the use of the Internet

means that social movements become more like organisations and organisations more like

social movements he does not define what these organisations are in the positive sense. On

another level, it is also questionable whether these notions can be transposed onto activist

media practices and social movements which are mostly non-institutionalised and

contentious.

Chadwick's argument is echoed by those who claim that left-wing organisations were shaped

by the last round of 'horizontal' and 'de-centralised' mobilisations the alter-globalisationmovement - at the beginning of the 21st Century (Hildebrandt & Bri, 2009). On the one

hand, this manifests itself in organisations increased orientation on the above mentionedsocial movements and their engagement in the mobilisations against neoliberal austerity.

notion of open organisation: the membership and social movements contribute to the auto-transformation of the organisation, the essential resources lay outside of the organisation,

organisational identification through process rather than exclusivity (Spehr in Hildebrandt &

Bri, 2009). These accounts can add something to our understanding yet remains marginalnot least because Hillebrandt, Brie or Spehr address activists' use of social media, the Internet


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or other relational media practices as a variable shaping collective action and faciliating new

forms of communicative hybridity in which different media are used not only side by sidebut intertwine, overlap, support each others formatsand address multiple audiences

2.4. A media practice approach for social movements?

In order to move beyond the organisation/organisation- less dichotomy which seems to haveinfluenced much of contemporary research I propose to use the media practice approach as

the theoretical and analytical tool. A number of writers have employed this framework to

analyse contemporary social movements media practices (Hobart 2009, Barassi; Trev 2012,McCurdy 2011, Cummaerts 2013, Couldry 2004, Postill & Bruchler 2010).

Alice Mattoni's study of precarious workers and their media practices in Italy facilitates a

deeper understanding of how activists embed themselves in a varied media environment. She

argues that activists use different mediums and technological objects in the course of the

same campaign or mobilisation."The result [is] that media texts carried their contents fromone site of the media environment to another." (18) This unique theoretical approach

promotes a re-assessment and re-thinking of contemporary activism, new communication

technologies and how activists use and relate to the media. In light of the recent tendency to

over-emphasise activists' use of social media such as Facebook and Twitter (Mason, 2011,

Castells 2012, Gerbaudo 2012) Mattoni identifies activists self-reflexive use of different

media as tools in front of different audiences (156). They consciously choose differentmediums, technologies and tools of communication to achieve the greatest possible degree of

visibility.

The media practice approach allows the researcher to go beyond the techno-determinism and

utopianism which has become prevalent in the writings on contemporary social movements

and the way it facilitates new organizational paradigms. Postill remarks that this constitutes a

new approach to understanding the practice of social media (2010:1). He conceptualizesthis practice through an emphasis on routine, movement and sociality. This has a number of

implication for ones research. By reducing ones research solely to methodologies such assemi-structured interviews one distinguishes between the offline and online rather than

treating these fields as inter-related and dialectically constitutive of one another (rf.Barassi).

A media practice approach, however, seeks to address the centrality of digital technologies in

individuals everyday life, their multiple interrelationships and to what extent collectiveactions are intertwined with a number of overlapping digital technologies. It does notdelineate activists use of the media to one specific technology, platform or channel but rather

seeks to understand how activists embed themselves in a media environment and make use of

the varied repertoires of communication that are available at any given moment in time.Thirdly, it allows us to understand how different technologies and platforms interact with

another and relate to one another. This means one is able to address to what extent activists

use different media to relate to different audiences. This allows one to analyse discourses and

narratives as mediated phenomena of activists situated activity.This is necessary given how,


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for example, the lines between the consumption and production (prosumers [Burmann &Arnhold, 2008]) of social media are blurred and intertwine in a process of cultural

production.

In particular, it facilitates a culturally sensitive understanding of these media practices and

how national contexts such as the debates on online and dataveillance matter. It will also

allow the researcher to discover what motivates individual activists, how they make sense of

the world and how they negotiate their practices in the context of growing datavaillance. Last

but not least important it facilitates a rethinking of activists organisational paradigms andtheir communicative hybridity.

3. Beyond the Hashtags? A Reading of the Gezi Park Protests3.1. The Revolution Will Not be Televised

In order to understand the relationships between the media black-out, Erdoansconfrontational course and the activists (digital) media practices, one has to look at howTurkeys neoliberal turn has concentrated media power into the hands of the few, in turnundermining the quality of Turkish democracy.

Turkeys neoliberal turn preceded the AKPs rise to power, yet the two are closely tied upwith one another. In the 1990s, general elections were won or lost in the pages of Hurriyet

and Sabah, which battled on behalf of the two main political parties, the CHP and the AKPspredecessor, the Motherland Party. Once elected to government in 2002, the AKP sought to

consolidate its power in the fragmented country. Tayyip Erdoans son-in-law, the CEO of

Calik Holding bought Sabah newspaper. Other businessmen-turned-media-moguls followed

suit. They became either friends or foes in Erdoans Turkey.

In 2008, the Prime Minister called for the boycott of The Doan Media Group which controlsHurriyet; a confrontational course continued during the Gezi protests. Under the conditions of

political polarization and increased economic pressure to produce shareholder value, channels

such as ntv of the Dou Media Group moved closer to the AKP in years to follow. Othercapitalist entrepreneurs such as the Demirren Group, which controlled 15% of the domestic

oil and gas market, diversified their business by buying the up-market Milliyet daily

newspaper in 2012. It was only during the media black-out that the popular classes started to

comprehend that the media did not serve anyones interest but their own, and started turningto social media and alternative ways to communicate their message.

A by-product of this concentration of media power is the newfound fame of Turkish soap

operas across Europe and the Middle East. Even in crisis-ridden neighbor country Greece

they have gained widespread popularity. Soft power is exclusively used to improveTurkeys image abroad. At the home front, the Turkish people have to learn the hard waywhat Erdoans hegemony and a neoliberal media ecology means in practice. Before theKurdish-Turkish peace process, Erdoans AKP made extensive use of anti -terror laws to

imprison and sanction journalists, in particular those associated with the Kurdish cause.


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Today many remain in jail. According to independent reports more journalists are imprisoned

in Turkey than in countries such as China or Belarus.

Before the Gezi protests shook Turkey, Erdoan had seemingly learned how to move fromseeking consent to coercion in order to maintain his hegemony and expand the neoliberal

project to new areas of social life. One would imagine that the house of cards quickly came

crashing down when a couple of environmentalists and activists unexpectedly connected to

millions of ordinary people. The medias response to the movement mirrored the experienceof millions of Kurdish people whose protests had never been reported by the media.

In the days that followed, even respected journalists who had played by the rules found

themselves under attack, like Can Dndar, who found his column pulled from Milliyet.

Yavuz Baydar was sacked from his editorial position at Sabah newspaper for his criticalline on the Gezi protests. #OccupyGezi exposed the links between the Erdoan governmentand the media moguls but the AKPs triumphant neoliberalism would require more to crack.

3.2. Will the Revolution be Tweeted?

During the media black-out in the first couple of days, activists and supporters of the

blossoming Gezi movement turned towards corporate-owned social media such as Twitter for

news on what was happening. Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook became practical tools for

activists to render their actions and the police repression visible to fellow protesters in

Turkey, international activists and sympathizers abroad, and a general news audience around

the world.

A few days into the Gezi revolt, the New York Universitys Social Media and ParticipationLab released a report titled A Breakout Role for Twitter? The Role of Social Media in theTurkish Protests. It shows that more than during the first two days, 90% of all recordedTweets on Gezi came from within Turkey and 50% from within greater Istanbul. The hashtag

#OccupyGezi was mentioned more than 160.000 times on the first day alone.

By the following day, the Lab had collected and mapped more than two million tweets

containing the hashtag #OccupyGezi. Two weeks later more than 13.5 million differentvideos, photos and other artefacts had been uploaded online (Ortadou, 2013). While thequantity of data available is enormous it discloses very little to those analyzing individual or

collective-activist media practices, let alone, the the conflictual or complementary

relationship with other media; or how new forms of collective action developed through the

use of Twitter and other social media. In fact, the study reinforces the orientalist prejudice

that social movements in faraway lands can only be successful if they make use of Western

technologies.

Writers such as Gerbaudo and Aouragh provide possible explanations as to how activists

might have used social media and the internet during the Gezi protests. Unfortunately they

fall into the same trap as the above mentioned study as they confine themselves to the

analysis of social media without accounting for the national media environment that activists


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are embedded in, as well as the different media technologies and formats they make use of in

the same round of mobilization (and, even the same demonstration).

This is exemplified by a YouTube video of a Turkish Airlines cabin crew on strike. The

video underlines how activists consciously mediate themselves in front of different audiences

to build new coalitions and bonds of solidarity. With their faces hidden behind the Guy

Fawkes/Anonymous masks the symbol of the new wave of anti-capitalist protest sinceOccupy they are lined up in a dance-formation in front of the Turkish Airlinesheadquarters in Galata.

Rather than performing a dance routine, the female strikers subvert the usual safety

announcement conducted at the beginning of each flight. They condemn the media for not

covering their dispute and go through a list of grievances before fastening their seat belts around their necks, thus creating a noose to hang themselves. This is culture-jamming at its

finest, coming from a group of workers who traditionally vote for Erdoans AKP.

There is a youtube clip which shows anticapitalist youths - men and women - and football

ultras building a barricade in the centre of Besiktas, Istanbul. As they form chains to pass

rocks from one person to another the camera swings toward the barricade. Atop one sees a

young man motivating and inspiring them to increase their pace as police lines seem to

advance. The camera re-focuses on the tedious labour of lifting rocks and passing them to the

front.

Facebook statuses have turned into placards at the protests. They attempt to connect with

like-minded movements across the world, in the face of a silent domestic media.

3.3. Different medias, different messages

Based on my own online observations, which involved watching countless hours of Youtube

footage and discussions with activists who participated in the Gezi protests, I argue that

#OccupyGezi should reconfigure our thinking on how activists use (social) media. The

activists of the Gezi commune used a variety of different tactics and strategies to strengthen

their movement and counter the media black-out. Activists appealed to an international and

passive audience with the New York Times full-page newspaper ad Stand with Turkey.Then they subverted Prime Minister Erdoans denunciation of the movement as looters(apulcu) and turned it into a collective identity by integrating the English neologism

chapuller into their Facebook names and Twitter handles so that even Noam Chomskydeclared himself a chapuller in solidarity on Youtube.

The popular humor and satire magazine Penguen became an amplifier for the movement by

featuring many anti-governmental cartoons on its pages. Penguen also highlights to what

extent the online world and the offline world are inter-related in contemporary social

movements. The famous Twitpics of the girl in the red dress and the woman with openarms being blasted by water cannon appeared in cartoonified versions on the magazinesfront pages. Meanwhile the movement on the streets advanced qualitatively when it adopted

the penguin as its symbol of resistance after CNNTurk aired the now infamous documentary.


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And one night scanning the internet I came across the Portuguese trade union confederations(CGTP) mobilization video of a group of penguins who act together to beat a killer whale

gone viral in the new Turkish context.

While protesters adopted humor, satire and subversion, Prime Minister Erdoan continued a

confrontational course both in form and content. An image which floated on Facebook

showed an army of penguins with the text: Tayyip Winter is coming. Again, Penguentook it up and turned it into a front cover. This Game of Thrones reference came after

Erdoan said: We already have a spring in Turkey but there are those who want to turnthis spring into winter Be calm, this will all pass.

Erdoans televised speeches and one-man rallies could not compete with the anti-systemicforms of communication that the movement adopted from the very first day. Thus the threats

to shut down Hayat TV and to fine Halk and Ulusal TV for livestreaming protests exposed

his desperation in face of an ever-growing movement on the streets. After President Abdullah

Gl had praised the role of social media during the Arab Spring, Tayyip Erdoan calledTwitter and social media the greatest menace to society despite having two millionTwitter followers himself. In response, confrontational methods such as the RedHack

Collectives shutting down of the polices webpage and the vandalizing of ntv vans caughtthe popular imagination.

As tear gas replaced oxygen in the streets, cooking shows, dance performances and popular

soap operas filled the airwaves. While for our Turkish sisters and brothers a whole world

changed in the first three days of the Gezi protests, the Turkish mainstream media continued

with business as usual. For example, Sabah newspaper did not feature the protests on its frontpage in the first three days. Instead they showed President Abdullah Gl with a horse on a

visit in Turkmenistan.

3.4. Dataveillance Considered

As the Gezi Park demonstrations spread across the country in June 2013 the police initially

arrested 25 people for calling for protests on Twitter. In the months that would follow

newspaper reports would report of further arrests despite the protests having calmed down. It

is unexplored how activists used social media in light of the arrests and brutal crackdown on

the camp and social media especially given the fact that after the revolt the AKP proposed tolimit the use of social media through an interlocutor system.

As the regime crisis intensified PM Erdogan threatened to pass a new law which would allow

the government to block internet pages without a court order in February 2014. Once again

protests amassed to confront the authoritarian move by the AKP. Following the billsapproval at the beginning of February Erdogan had just banned Twitter at the time of writing.

Erdogans even deepened the rifts inside the AKP this time as President Abdullah Glcircumvented the ban and tweeted that he had been against this policy all along. Not only has

PM Erdogan's number of Twitter followers increased from 2 million in June 2013 to 4.17

million since, but the number of Tweets mined from Turkey has doubled from its usual dailyaverage. It is in this context that online surveillance and Dataveillance are potential factors


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which either inhibit people from organising, or in fact, increase these medias attractivenessas an alternative source of information, gathering, and dissent.

Long before Gladwell (2010) and Morozov (2009,2013) warned against techno-utopianism,

Hacktivist groups such as the Chaos Computer Club had been building infrastructures and

channels of communications which offer greater protection to Internet users. These forms of

digital activism stand diametrically opposed to Castellss promise that the Internet providescitizens with greater autonomy (2012).

The recent NSA scandal which unveiled the US governments data surveillance programmes,the fact that corporate-owned platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Google mine users

data and sell the information to third parties represents a new fault line for activists and social

movements. From the arrests of young men who posted on Facebook that they want to start a

riot, the arrests of Turkish activists for inciting Tweets dataveillence is an issue whichactivists take into consideration when relating to different technologies and media.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald reports that more and more activists encrypt the emails they send

to him, or at least apologise for not encrypting (Greenwald, 2013). But even encryption

services have proven to allow governments and corporations to spy on users as was

exemplified by the backdoor in the Thor Browser. None of the debates outlined above evenseek to address the way in which activists negotiate the datavaillence.

4. Conclusion4.1. Alternatives from Below and from within the mainstream

Many of my contacts in Turkey told me in early December that things have reverted back to

normal these days. It might have even be argued that Erdoanemerged stronger from of theuprising. However, the cracks at the top of Turkish society had been exacerbated by

widespread discontent from below. The fact that socialist feminists, anti-capitalist Muslims,

CHP (Kemalists), the BDP, environmental groups and Football Ultras demonstrated and

fought on the barricades together is unprecedented. While Gezi may not have had the power

to dethrone Erdoan and the AKP, the movements innovative media practices in a neoliberalmedia environment showed that the Gezi protests changed the parameters of Turkish politics

while it lasted.

One would believe that such a coalition would suffice to break a government. However it

may be precisely because activists from different political, ideological and religious

backgrounds found themselves together for the very first time that they had a lot to learn.

These lessons will not be in vein. The alternative practices established during the Gezi days

have been engrained into the collective consciousness of those who participated in the

protests. The uprising thus changed the parameters once and for all. Neighborhood

assemblies and internet television channels such as ChapulTV can turn this broad coalition

into a real movement that will not only see the BBC World Service end its collaboration with

ntv, but that will create its own institutions of popular power.


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Another technological advancement which could facilitate new repertoires of communication

is the ephemeral communication through services such as Snapchat. Through these servicesusers can send messages, videos and photos which self-destruct. This privacy-preservinghas gained widespread popularity. However, as Della Porta and Tarrow identify: new

communication technology always introduce new forms of exclusions (2005:4). Currently wehave no knowledge whether such services are being used by activists, or how they could

possibly be used to communicate and create new forms of mediated collective action.

4.2. Some Ideas on the Regime Crisis

The markets have spoken. Following the first arrests of members of government on 17

December the stock markets plummeted by more than ten per cent in less than a week. The

Turkish Lira is at an all-time low. Any re-bound will happen after the March elections. This

will hit Erdogan where it hurts. Now capital is worried about its future in Turkey. This

explains liberal statements by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Secondly, the power struggle between Erdogan and his former friend and self-exiled Islamic

preacher Fetulleh Glen are a mediated expression of rifts within a particular section of the

ruling class. This rift is only exacerbated by old rivalries between the military, the judiciary

and other sections battling for power in the run-up to the March 2014 elections. The military

has vowed that it will not interfere in the crisis gripping the government. But would you ever

trust Turkish military officers?

Thirdly, the Gezi protests opened up the space for a new political imagination inside the

Turkish state. One would think that the scandal would open up a new space for the main

opposition party, the CHP however that does not seem to be the case. Unless Erdogan himself

is forced to resign in the coming days, this space will also allow new alternatives from below

to fill the space in the upcoming elections, the HDP being one of them.

Last but not least, the crisis could put the Kurdish peace process on ice. The gains made

during the negotiations might be endangered. The Kurdish question could develop into a new

fault line as actors hostile and favorable to the Kurdish cause will try to re-negotiate the

question on new terms.

The crisis unfolding in Turkey goes beyond a governmental crisis. It truly is a regime crisis

which will shape Turkey in years to come. How they will seek to address the question of

government corruptiona terrain most favorable to technocratic solutions? Will they be ableto develop political alternatives?

Back on the streets of Besiktas, protesters hijacked an excavator to break through police lines

in June 2013. Movements will make use of whatever tools are at their disposal. It is this

direct experience of self-organisation, collective action, and human solidarity lays the

foundation for a new society.


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draft paper: digitally-mediated organisation, communicative hybridity and dataveillance in...

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