The symbol of social media in contemporary protest: Twitter and the Gezi Park movement

Abstract

<jats:p> This article explores how Twitter has emerged as a signifier of contemporary protest. Using the concept of ‘social media imaginaries’, a derivative of the broader field of ‘media imaginaries’, our analysis seeks to offer new insights into activists’ relation to and conceptualisation of social media and how it shapes their digital media practices. Extending the concept of media imaginaries to include analysis of protestors’ use of aesthetics, it aims to unpick how a particular ‘social media imaginary’ is constructed and informs their collective identity. Using the Gezi Park protest of 2013 as a case study, it illustrates how social media became a symbolic part of the protest movement by providing the visualised possibility of imagining the movement. In previous research, the main emphasis has been given to the functionality of social media as a means of information sharing and a tool for protest organisation. This article seeks to redress this by directing our attention to the role of visual communication in online protest expressions and thus also illustrates the role of visual analysis in social movement studies. </jats:p>

Humour and sarcasm: expressions of global warming on Twitter

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“…Social media platforms have served as venues for political engagement and social activism for many years, especially for the Middle East region, where people have limited access to citizenship activities and political participation. Protest movements that straddle virtual and physical space are on the rise worldwide, with activists increasingly able to engage with media technologies to become more visible and to ensure their voice is heard (Jenzen et al, 2021;Mason, 2014). The importance of social media for contemporary protest movements has been theorized from different perspectives.…”

Thick Description and Embodied Analysis of Digital Visual Artefacts: The Visual Repertoire of #SisterIDoBelieveYou

“…By prioritising the contextual conditions of the circulation of digital visual artefacts in our analysis, we seek to shed light on the role of visual affective practices in forming social and political belonging. In doing so, we build on Jenzen et al (2020) investigation of the cultural and symbolic value of communicative processes in social media. Working with Twitter and hashtag ethnography has allowed us to look at a timeline of group objectification, so to say, at a register of visual affective practices related to this process.…”