Social Media Contribution into Rebellions Communication and Social Movements

With the developments in communication technologies, people have experienced big

transformations about communicating and sharing information in their daily and social life. New
communication networks provided by these developments allow people to get more reliable and secure
information or knowledge. Audiences all over the globe are experiencing an unprecedented communication
challenge. The intensity of the transnational media platforms and the rapid media distribution information
implies a huge adaptation and interaction to diverse media technologies.

With the developments in communication technologies, people have experienced big

transformations about communicating and sharing information in their daily and social life. New
communication networks provided by these developments allow people to get more reliable and secure
information or knowledge. That is, people can get first-hand information directly without using secondary
sources. Social media tells the usage of mobile vehicles effectively on internet. According to this kind of
communication style, users can show their personal interests, share photos or videos with other users by
using their personal pages. Members can also see others’ personal pages and they can communicate by
using instant messaging part of personal pages.

Content shared in social media can be spread quickly and people can get possibility of arguing
these contents and information. These possibilities provide social media to play an important role in political
spectrum. For example, in last three years social movements organized by using social media could
overthrow oppressive governments or dictators in North Africa and Middle East. These examples prove that
social media has gained an importance determining politics and social movements. In this study, impacts
and importance of social media on “Arab Spring” which is going on increasing its importance in Middle East
will be taken in hand and specifically the study will focus on the role of social media on “Arab Spring”.
Eventually it was understood that social media is not the results of “Arab Spring”, actually it has turned into
a vehicle which made huge contributions to these social movements.

Study on the usage of social media in stimulating social movements has only begun to surface in
the last decade. Although social media is a relatively young phenomenon in our world, works on social
movement and collective action has been around as early as the 1960s, providing scholars with important
information in order to understand the impact of social media as an organizational tool (Leenders &
Heydemann 2012). While most of these studies have focused on specific case studies – particularly in the
Middle East following the ‘Arab Spring’ – to demonstrate how social media facilitated and promoted social
movements, none show a worldwide view of its impact in the mobilization process. This paper reviews the
hypothesis in the literature looking at the 5 conditions to which people organize while focusing on social
media as the best vehicle for mobilization and part of the macro-level picture of the process. The theoretical
framework for this paper was based on a number of different theories that offered a great avenue for my
own analytical research and continued theoretical discussion. The first part focuses on modernization
theory and relative deprivation as a departure point for the discussion emphasizing on the role of
individuals’ grievances as the base condition for social movements. The second part uses resource
mobilization theory, as well as social networks, and traditional media to explain the mechanisms that aid in
the formation and sustenance of social movements. The third, and last part, discuses the current approach
to social movements – social media – as the latest and most revolutionary tool in the formation of social
movements.

The primary objective of this chapter is to analyze the support of social media for social
movements within the context of the anti-consumption movement. Social media have proved to be
strategic for initiating, organizing and communicating social movements. The anti-consumption
movement is a trend of the postmodernism era that has not yet reached a large following. A
secondary aim of this chapter is to analyze the similarities and differences in the support of social
media for the anti-consumption movement between one developed and one emerging market. To
achieve this goal, a content analysis was employed to analyze Facebook accounts of anti-
consumption online communities in the USA and Turkey. The findings show that social media can be
the right medium to increase coverage of social movements in society. Additionally, the online
institutionalization and decentralized organization of the online community as well as stable social
media sharing help support non-radical social movements like anti-consumption (Sinem & Irem
March 2017).