Can Social Networks Create Public Sphere? Gezi Park Protests and Intersections with the Media

Abstract

Social network provides a good opportunity for coordination and exchange of opinions. However, those exchanges through social media can be misleading because it could be used to manipulate people, distorts facts, and give wrong impression about the real public opinion. The case of the May 2013 protests for the redevelopment of Taksim Gezi Park serves a good example of distorted public opinion. Those protests started as a peaceful movement, however later turned into protests for which the intention and meaning became unclear. Protests and strikes took place across Turkey under the banners of freedom of speech, press, and the government's authoritarian attitude towards public concerns. Social media was a galvanizing force in the protests; it was the most popular means of exchange and dissemination of ideas amongst those participants. This paper discusses Stuart Hall’ s essay “Encoding Decoding” to evaluate how messages were produced and disseminated in the context of the Gezi Park protests. Jodi Dean’ s essay “The Net and Multiple Realities” is used to analyze whether net represents accurate public opinion and Nancy Fraser’s essay “Rethinking The Public Sphere” is used to bring a better understanding of social media over representation of public opinion. The study will try to reveal whether social media truly reflects public opinion by analyzing Gezi Protests.