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THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF DIGITAL ACTIVISM: THE EFFECT OF GENDER ON SOCIAL ACTIVIST PARTICIPATION LEVEL OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 69, 105 - 123, 15.01.2019

Elif Şeşen Perihan Şıker

https://doi.org/10.17755/esosder.404506

Abstract


The study aims to understand the
participation status of the university students in the protest activities
defined as digital or social activism, which are organized commonly through
social media. The survey, in which the participants are asked whether they are
participating to various protest activities that starts online and are
delivered offline, was applied to 302 individuals in Nigde Omer Halisdemir
University. The study results deduced out of testing 5 hypothesis in total
showed that online activities have small effects on reality. The reactions are
limited to subscribing or likes, and 80% of the students, that is 4 out of 5
students, do not participate in these physical offline activities.




Keywords

Digital activism online/offline activities

References

  • Allbrecht, S. (2006). Whose voice is heard in online deliberation? A study of participation and representation in political debates on the Internet. Information. Communication and Society, 9 (1), 62-82. doi: 10.1080/13691180500519548. Barney, D. (2010). Excuse us if we don’t give a fuck: The (anti-)political career of participation. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts and Culture, 2 (2), 138-146. http://darinbarneyresearch.mcgill.ca/Work/Excuse%20us.pdf.
  • Baumgartner, J., & Morris, J. (2010). Myfacetube Politics: Social Networking Web Sites and Political Engagement of Young Adults. Social Science Computer Review, 28, 24-44. doi: 10.1177/0894439309334325.
  • Boulianne, S. (2009). Does Internet use affect engagement? A meta–analysis of research. Political Communication, 26 (2), 193-211. doi: 10.1080/10584600902854363.
  • Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: a metaanalysis of current research. Information, Communication & Society, 18 (5), 524-538. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1008542.
  • Calenda, D., & Meijer, A. (2009). Young People, the Internet and Political Participation. Findings of a Web Survey in Italy, Spain and The Netherlands. Information, Communication & Society, 12 (6), 879-898. doi: 10.1080/13691180802158508.
  • Cammaerts, B., & Van Audenhove, L. (2005). Online political debate, unbounded citizenship, and the problematic nature of a transnational public sphere. Political Communication, 22 (2), 179-196. doi: 10.1080/10584600590933188.
  • Chiu, P.Y., Cheung, C., & Lee, M. (2008). Online Social Networks: Why Do “We” Use Facebook? Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
  • Christensen, H. (2011). Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means?. First Monday, 16 (2), 7. Retrieved December 01, 2017 from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3336/2767.
  • Dahlgren, P. (2009). Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Della Porta, D., & Mosca, L. (2005). Global-net for global movements? A network of networks for a movement of movements. Journal of Public Policy,25(1),165-190.
  • di Gennaro, C., & Dutton, W. (2006). The Internet and the Public: Online and Offline Political Participation in the United Kingdom. Parliamentary Affairs, 59 (2), 299-313. doi: 10.1093/pa/gsl004.
  • di Maggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, R., & Robinson, J. (2001). Social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 307-336. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.307.
  • Duran, H., & Özkul, M. (2015). Modern İletişimin Arayüzü: Sanal İletişim Sosyal Paylaşım Sitelerinin Toplumsal İlişki Kurma Biçimlerine Etkisi (Facebook Örneği). Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 21, 213-246.
  • Enjolras, B., Steen-Johnsen, K., & Wollebæk, D. (2013). Social media and mobilization to offline demonstrations: Transcending participatory divides? New Media & Society, 15, 890-908. doi: 10.1177/1461444812462844.
  • Fenton, N., & Barassi, V. (2011). Alternative media and social networking sites: The politics of nindividuation and political participation. The Communication Review, 14, 179-196. doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2011.597245.
  • Gibson, R., & Cantijoch, M. (2013). Conceptualizing and Measuring Participation in the Age of the Internet: Is Online Political Engagement Really Different to Offline? The Journal of Politics, 75 (3), 701-716. doi:10.1017/S0022381613000431.
  • Gil de Zúñiga, H., Molyneux, L. & Zheng, P. (2014). Social Media, Political Expression, and Political Participation: Panel Analysis of Lagged and Concurrent Relationships, Journal of Communication, 64, 612-634. doi:10.1111/jcom.12103.
  • Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted. The New Yorker, Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all#ixzz10raPq1SX .
  • Graeff, E. (2016) ‘Youth Digital Activism.’ In Youth Civic Engagement: United Nations World Youth Report. New York, NY: United Nations, pp. 95-107. https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2016/10/20/Graeff-un_world_youth_report_youth_civic_engagement-excerpt.pdf.
  • Joyce, M. (2010). Introduction: How to Think About Digital Activism. In M. Joyce (Eds.), Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change (pp. 1-14). International Debate Education Association, New York: IDEBATE Press.
  • Kahn, R., & Keller, D. (2004). New Media and Internet Activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to Blogging. New Media and Society, 6 (1), 87-95.
  • Kellner, D. (1999). Globalization From Below? Toward a Radical Democratic Technopolitics. Angelaki, 4 (2), 101-113.
  • Lazarsfeld P. F., & Merton R. K. (1948) Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action. New York: Bobbs-Merill.
  • Lee, Y.H., & Hsieh, G. (2013, April). Does Slacktivism Hurt Activism? The effect of moral balancing and consistency in online activism. Paper presented at the SIGCHI Conference on human factors in computing systems, Paris, France.
  • Morozov, E. (2009, May 19). The Brave New World of Slacktivism. Foreign Policy, Retrieved November 17, 2017, from https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104302141.
  • Morozov, E. (2011). The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: PublicAffairs.
  • Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C., & McNeal, R. (2008). Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Norris, P. (2002). Democratic Phoenix: Political Activism Worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Özdemir, Ö. (2015). Başarısız bir sosyal medya deneyimi: Occupy Wall Street. Retrieved December 22, 2017 from http://www.sendika.org/2015/01/basarisiz-bir-sosyal-medya-deneyimi-occupy-wall-street-onder-ozdemir.
  • Papacharissi, Z. (2009). The virtual sphere 2.0: The Internet, the public sphere, and beyond. In A. Chadwick (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 230-245). Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  • Rotman, D., Vieweg, S., Yardi, S., Chi, E., Preece, J., Shneiderman, B., & Pirolli, P. (2011, January). From Slacktivism to Activism: Participatory Culture in the Age of Social Media. Proceedings of the CHI Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 819-822). New York., NY.
  • Scholz, T. (2010). Infrastructure: Its Transformations and Effect on Digital Activism. In M. Joyce (Eds.), Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change (pp. 17-32). International Debate Education Association, New York: IDEBATE Press.
  • Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media. Foreign Affairs, 90 (1), 28-41.
  • Visser, S., & Stolle, D. (2014). The Internet and new modes of political participation: online versus offline participation, Information. Communication & Society, 17 (8), 937-955. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2013.867356.
  • Ward, J. (2016) Riding the wave: How the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge used storytelling and user-generated content to embrace slacktivism, in Public Relations and Participatory Culture: Fandom, social media and community engagement, Amber Hutchins & N. T. Tindall (Eds.), New York: Routledge, 169-180.
  • Wellman, B., Hasse, A.Q., & Witte, J., Hampton, K. (2001). Does the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement social capital? American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 436-55. doi: 10.1177/00027640121957286.
  • Willis, S., & Tranter, B. (2006). Beyond the ‘digital divide’ – Internet diffusion and inequality in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 42 (1), 43-59. doi: 10.1177/1440783306061352.
  • Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationship. Journal of Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 5-13. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.012

DIJITAL AKTIVIZMIN DAYANILMAZ HAFIFLIĞI: CINSIYETIN ÜNIVERSITE ÖĞRENCILERININ SOSYAL AKTIVIST KATILIM DÜZEYINE ETKISI

Year 2019, Volume: 18 Issue: 69, 105 - 123, 15.01.2019

Elif Şeşen Perihan Şıker

https://doi.org/10.17755/esosder.404506

Abstract



Bu çalışma, üniversite öğrencilerinin djital ya da
online activism olarak tanımlanan ve yoğunlukla sosyal medya üzerinden
gerçekleştirilen protesto eylemlerine katılım durumlarını anlamaya yöneliktir.
Öğrencilere çevrimiçinden çevrimdışına yani online’dan dış çevre’ye doğru giden
bir yelpazede çeşitli protesto aktivitelerine katılıp katılmayacaklarının
sorulduğu anket Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Üniversitesi’nde 302 kişiye
uygulanmıştır. Toplam 5 hipotezin test edildiği çalışma sonuçları sanal
eylemlerin gerçek yaşama etkilerinin sınırlı olduğunu göstermiştir.
Öğrencilerin tepkileri bir gruba üye olmak ya da bir sayfayı beğenmekle sınırlı
kalmakta öğrencilerin neredeyse %80’i yani her 5 öğrencinin 4’ü fiziksel bir
çaba gerektiren dış çevredeki aktivitelere katılmamaktadır.





Keywords

Dijital aktivizm çevrimiçi/çevrimdışı eylem

References

  • Allbrecht, S. (2006). Whose voice is heard in online deliberation? A study of participation and representation in political debates on the Internet. Information. Communication and Society, 9 (1), 62-82. doi: 10.1080/13691180500519548. Barney, D. (2010). Excuse us if we don’t give a fuck: The (anti-)political career of participation. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts and Culture, 2 (2), 138-146. http://darinbarneyresearch.mcgill.ca/Work/Excuse%20us.pdf.
  • Baumgartner, J., & Morris, J. (2010). Myfacetube Politics: Social Networking Web Sites and Political Engagement of Young Adults. Social Science Computer Review, 28, 24-44. doi: 10.1177/0894439309334325.
  • Boulianne, S. (2009). Does Internet use affect engagement? A meta–analysis of research. Political Communication, 26 (2), 193-211. doi: 10.1080/10584600902854363.
  • Boulianne, S. (2015). Social media use and participation: a metaanalysis of current research. Information, Communication & Society, 18 (5), 524-538. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2015.1008542.
  • Calenda, D., & Meijer, A. (2009). Young People, the Internet and Political Participation. Findings of a Web Survey in Italy, Spain and The Netherlands. Information, Communication & Society, 12 (6), 879-898. doi: 10.1080/13691180802158508.
  • Cammaerts, B., & Van Audenhove, L. (2005). Online political debate, unbounded citizenship, and the problematic nature of a transnational public sphere. Political Communication, 22 (2), 179-196. doi: 10.1080/10584600590933188.
  • Chiu, P.Y., Cheung, C., & Lee, M. (2008). Online Social Networks: Why Do “We” Use Facebook? Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
  • Christensen, H. (2011). Political activities on the Internet: Slacktivism or political participation by other means?. First Monday, 16 (2), 7. Retrieved December 01, 2017 from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3336/2767.
  • Dahlgren, P. (2009). Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Della Porta, D., & Mosca, L. (2005). Global-net for global movements? A network of networks for a movement of movements. Journal of Public Policy,25(1),165-190.
  • di Gennaro, C., & Dutton, W. (2006). The Internet and the Public: Online and Offline Political Participation in the United Kingdom. Parliamentary Affairs, 59 (2), 299-313. doi: 10.1093/pa/gsl004.
  • di Maggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, R., & Robinson, J. (2001). Social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 307-336. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.307.
  • Duran, H., & Özkul, M. (2015). Modern İletişimin Arayüzü: Sanal İletişim Sosyal Paylaşım Sitelerinin Toplumsal İlişki Kurma Biçimlerine Etkisi (Facebook Örneği). Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, 21, 213-246.
  • Enjolras, B., Steen-Johnsen, K., & Wollebæk, D. (2013). Social media and mobilization to offline demonstrations: Transcending participatory divides? New Media & Society, 15, 890-908. doi: 10.1177/1461444812462844.
  • Fenton, N., & Barassi, V. (2011). Alternative media and social networking sites: The politics of nindividuation and political participation. The Communication Review, 14, 179-196. doi.org/10.1080/10714421.2011.597245.
  • Gibson, R., & Cantijoch, M. (2013). Conceptualizing and Measuring Participation in the Age of the Internet: Is Online Political Engagement Really Different to Offline? The Journal of Politics, 75 (3), 701-716. doi:10.1017/S0022381613000431.
  • Gil de Zúñiga, H., Molyneux, L. & Zheng, P. (2014). Social Media, Political Expression, and Political Participation: Panel Analysis of Lagged and Concurrent Relationships, Journal of Communication, 64, 612-634. doi:10.1111/jcom.12103.
  • Gladwell, M. (2010, October 4). Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted. The New Yorker, Retrieved November 13, 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all#ixzz10raPq1SX .
  • Graeff, E. (2016) ‘Youth Digital Activism.’ In Youth Civic Engagement: United Nations World Youth Report. New York, NY: United Nations, pp. 95-107. https://dam-prod.media.mit.edu/x/2016/10/20/Graeff-un_world_youth_report_youth_civic_engagement-excerpt.pdf.
  • Joyce, M. (2010). Introduction: How to Think About Digital Activism. In M. Joyce (Eds.), Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change (pp. 1-14). International Debate Education Association, New York: IDEBATE Press.
  • Kahn, R., & Keller, D. (2004). New Media and Internet Activism: From the ‘Battle of Seattle’ to Blogging. New Media and Society, 6 (1), 87-95.
  • Kellner, D. (1999). Globalization From Below? Toward a Radical Democratic Technopolitics. Angelaki, 4 (2), 101-113.
  • Lazarsfeld P. F., & Merton R. K. (1948) Mass Communication, Popular Taste and Organized Social Action. New York: Bobbs-Merill.
  • Lee, Y.H., & Hsieh, G. (2013, April). Does Slacktivism Hurt Activism? The effect of moral balancing and consistency in online activism. Paper presented at the SIGCHI Conference on human factors in computing systems, Paris, France.
  • Morozov, E. (2009, May 19). The Brave New World of Slacktivism. Foreign Policy, Retrieved November 17, 2017, from https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104302141.
  • Morozov, E. (2011). The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. New York: PublicAffairs.
  • Mossberger, K., Tolbert, C., & McNeal, R. (2008). Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Norris, P. (2002). Democratic Phoenix: Political Activism Worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Özdemir, Ö. (2015). Başarısız bir sosyal medya deneyimi: Occupy Wall Street. Retrieved December 22, 2017 from http://www.sendika.org/2015/01/basarisiz-bir-sosyal-medya-deneyimi-occupy-wall-street-onder-ozdemir.
  • Papacharissi, Z. (2009). The virtual sphere 2.0: The Internet, the public sphere, and beyond. In A. Chadwick (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics (pp. 230-245). Abingdon: Routledge.
  • Rheingold, H. (1993). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  • Rotman, D., Vieweg, S., Yardi, S., Chi, E., Preece, J., Shneiderman, B., & Pirolli, P. (2011, January). From Slacktivism to Activism: Participatory Culture in the Age of Social Media. Proceedings of the CHI Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 819-822). New York., NY.
  • Scholz, T. (2010). Infrastructure: Its Transformations and Effect on Digital Activism. In M. Joyce (Eds.), Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change (pp. 17-32). International Debate Education Association, New York: IDEBATE Press.
  • Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media. Foreign Affairs, 90 (1), 28-41.
  • Visser, S., & Stolle, D. (2014). The Internet and new modes of political participation: online versus offline participation, Information. Communication & Society, 17 (8), 937-955. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2013.867356.
  • Ward, J. (2016) Riding the wave: How the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge used storytelling and user-generated content to embrace slacktivism, in Public Relations and Participatory Culture: Fandom, social media and community engagement, Amber Hutchins & N. T. Tindall (Eds.), New York: Routledge, 169-180.
  • Wellman, B., Hasse, A.Q., & Witte, J., Hampton, K. (2001). Does the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement social capital? American Behavioral Scientist, 45, 436-55. doi: 10.1177/00027640121957286.
  • Willis, S., & Tranter, B. (2006). Beyond the ‘digital divide’ – Internet diffusion and inequality in Australia. Journal of Sociology, 42 (1), 43-59. doi: 10.1177/1440783306061352.
  • Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationship. Journal of Computers in Human Behavior, 24, 5-13. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.012
There are 39 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Elif Şeşen 0000-0002-8513-9647

Perihan Şıker 0000-0002-0787-8516

Publication Date January 15, 2019
Submission Date March 12, 2018
Published in Issue Year 2019 Volume: 18 Issue: 69

Cite

APA Şeşen, E., & Şıker, P. (2019). THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF DIGITAL ACTIVISM: THE EFFECT OF GENDER ON SOCIAL ACTIVIST PARTICIPATION LEVEL OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS. Elektronik Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 18(69), 105-123. https://doi.org/10.17755/esosder.404506

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