Abstract
In today's world, it's impossible to think about social movements apart from the media, and it has become an obligation out of necessity to set alternative media channels in terms of social movements. The new media and social media networks have been used actively in the process of setting aforementioned alternative media channels. The use of alternative media as a means of criticism and resistance becomes possible with these media networks when they are used with effective communication strategies and techniques. Transmedia storytelling is the leading one among these effective communication strategies. Based on this assertion, in this study, how transmedia storytelling was used as a political advertising activity by the social movements will be analyzed through the example of Gezi Park protests that took place in Turkey in 2013.
TopThe Changing Nature Of Politics: Actors And Representation
In the traditional sense, “social movements” concepts have been used to name collectives, that struggle for social change. While Castells defines the social movement as a group of proposals for innovation and a form of partnership, Collas regards social movements as collective actions in the conflict between social constructs. Meyer and Tarrow described social movements on the axis of common purpose, solidarity, power relations and challenge (Caig & Form, 2010, pp. 355-356). Today, social movements function in a wide range from the construction of the individual's identity to the creation of communal spaces.
David Easton's system model (1957, 1965) considers politics as the art of supply and demand equilibrium. According to this model, political, ecological, economical and cultural systems are in touch with each other, and these sub-systems have demands from one another. The characteristic that makes political system superior to the other systems is that it is being in the decision maker position. Systems continue to work smoothly as long as they have the supply and demand equilibrium in communication with themselves and with other systems. However, once this equilibrium is broken down, the system won't work and the change will be inevitable. This change can be the transformation of the whole system as well as more reformist transformations such as the change of the actors or the change of demands. In addition to this, according to the system model, since political system is superior than the other systems as it has the capability of decision making, political actors who must enhance the equilibrium of the system have an important role.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Guerrilla Communication Technique: The technique that is used to deconstruct practices of mainstream media.
Transmedia Storytelling: It's a method of holistic storytelling that functions through more than one media channel.
Youth Activism: Collective actions that are mostly formed by young people and demands are taken form by the requests and desires of these young people.
Social Movements: The term of the whole collective action that demands transformation in social structure.
Fan Activism: Collective actions that are formed by certain fan groups.
Collective Action: The term that is coined for every action in a social movement as a whole.
New Media: The total media network that has appeared with the transformation in communication technologies and used the infrastructure of the internet.