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Advocates of new media-especially social networks, blogs, and photo/content sharing sites-argue that these tools create transformative impacts on society. Recently, around the world younger activists in popular democracy movements, uprisings, and protests, feeling disengaged by traditional forms of political discourse, have debated their positions on new media, and have used digital media to communicate, organize, and coordinate protest activities. While some media scholars suggest this is an indication that young people are active in creating a public sphere constructed by social media, there is still little real-world evidence that the technological potentials are widely realized. To address this gap, this comparative case study aims to reveal how some "ordinary" young people are using social media in response to political issues, investigating: if social media create a new kind of dynamic arena for their public activism; which factors may stimulate the young to activism; and whether their motivation is powerful enough to resist the status quo. Describing and analyzing qualitative interview data from a study of Turkish students and a parallel collection of data from US students, we construct an explanation of their communicated understandings of their differences and similarities in opportunities for political actions. Our findings indicate: there are many similar technical capacities; some similar topics are seen as political; and there are different understandings of what is and is not for public discussion among their personal collections of contacts and friends, with varying levels of real-world connections. This analysis is important in terms of understanding the ways uses of media technologies may be affected by different cultures, political and social conceptualizations and online communication patterns. 1 1234567890():,; Literature reviewThe literature on the role of the Internet and social media regarding democratization and digital activism has centered on a dichotomy between optimists and skeptics. Whereas the optimist view argues that the Internet and other forms of electronic communication contributes to a new kind of public sphere and potentially a new kind of democracy (Bohman, 2010), and assumes that the Internet might also promote social movements ARTICLE PALGRAVE COMMUNICATIONS |

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This study examines the media representations of Turkey's educational labour union, Eğitim-Sen. In so doing, it analyses the news coverage of the protests of Eğitim-Sen against the education policies of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, structured by an Islamist political perspective. In this study, the content analysis has been carried out in order to investigate the attitude of the news media towards the education activism, as well as in order to take in issues of meaning and context. This analysis involves the online newspaper debates pertaining to the 13 February 2015 strike action of Eğitim-Sen, and the new curriculum announced in July 2017. This study aims to reveal how the struggles of Eğitim-Sen against the Islamification of the education system in Turkey are represented in the media, how Turkish media attempts to generate powerful voices, as well as how the media ignores the voices of dissidents. It has been concluded that Eğitim-Sen is underrepresented in the mainstream news media.

This study aims to question the watchdog function of the Turkish press in the context of the coronavirus crisis, to deal with the initial coronavirus responses of the news media, and to examine the extent to which the press fulfills its public responsibility and watchdog function. Accordingly, it discussed the role of the media in protecting the public interest in terms of watchdog journalism and centered on the matter of how the news media debate social welfare measures taken for the fragile social groups during the coronaviruses crisis. The study claims that pro-government media present a health-based perspective, but anti-government media much more point out the socio-economic dimensions of COVID-19. The online newspapers that are selected according to the range of different political stances, in particular, anti-government and pro-government, have been investigated through content analysis in terms of content diversity and watchdog journalism. Thus, it has been determined whether watchdog journalism is fulfilled in such a polarized political environment in the context of news on COVID-19 and concluded that the news media ignore social policy measures, are polarized along political lines, and are not critical enough of the government.