DIGITAL ACTIVISM AND ARAB SPRING

The new media has changed the systems of communication of people, companies and groups. It also has changed the forms of communication of activist groups. This has caused the two notions called “digital activism” and “citizen journalism” to turn out. Internet which has integrated itself to our social and economical life and created a bound between the world and us also represents an area in activist movements. With the help of Internet, people are able to gather into groups according to their views and react together.

The birth of digital activism befits the birth of Internet. The information and communication Technologies and the Networks that are created with these tools are used for different activists purposes are spreading over a wider area. Digital activism is diversified with web 2.0 which is the second- generation Internet services and which brings the user experience out. For example, wikipedia, youtube, facebook are those kinds of sites. Social Networks have succeed in being privileged channels of digital activism. Digital activism is consisted of the advocaters of the people who believe in the democracy of social networks, who believe they can work every problem out via Internet. new collaboration technologies focused on citizen participation afford the opportunity to impact to disadvantaged segments. This situation creates a meeting point for social movements. The reason for this is the ability to reach information quickly and the removing of the bars of geographic, time and physical.

People are able to reach each other easily wherever they are with the fast Access of information. People have the opportunity to share whatever they want in their own social Networks to their followers or the ones who search about these issues.

For example, the summit meetings are running with the brutal protests of the opponents of globalization. These meetings bring the presidents of countries and the officials of IMF and World Bank together. Numerous of these movements are planned on Internet via social Networks. Everything that is going on there is shared at the same time with the world through social Networks. The effect of the news shared by social Networks is as follows: Traditional mainstream media was giving misleading informations by interpreting the news differently but the news from the social Networks made us understand them correctly.

         

One of the examples of digital activism in Turkey is the protesters who stick together against the Internet censorship on social Networks and then take to the streets. They tried to defy internet censorship from their own sites www.internetimedokunma.com, Facebook and Twitter. Their protest had taken place in mainstream media too.

In october of 2006, at the center of Cairo, a group of women who wear headscarfes and who do not were attacked by bullies. This was not a first in Egypt where women were raped almost always. The important thing here was the display of this event by bloggers. They wrote about this ans shared videos and pictures. The ones who claimed the event were women bloggers mostly. The mainstream media learned about this from virtual world. This example calls a question in minds: “What is the distinguishing feature of the political blogs in Egypt?” Activist Wael Abbas who is the writer of Misr Digital which is a politic blog answers this question in this way: “The blogs in Egypt are very different from other countries. We do journalism in our blogs. In blogmosphere, people who want to make journalism write not the ones who want to mention about their views. Bloggers step up to the plate to fill the gap. They used the events in digital environment with videos and pictures that the press did not care. By the way, the society had the opportunity to know the views and activities of politic activists. The society discovered a new world. Blogs became that popular because they were like newspapers.”

The blog in Egypt is an example of citizen journalism. The way they talked about this situation, the way they showed evidences is an example of journalism. They do not only comment on the events in Egypt. They try to unite and provoke the others.

We have seen another example of digital activisim in 2009 at the elections of Iran. At this election, when the declaration was made about Mousavi’s losing of the elections against Ahmedinecad, the supporters of Mousavi took this to the streets. Large mass demonstrations took place. A lof of people died and government of Iran deported big media organizations like CNN and BBC and applied censorship. The world was following the news only from the Iran state television but something happened beyond computation. The opposing groups started to spread a lot of pictures and videos from Iran and those created the effect of a bomb.  A lot of television channels started to run those pictures and videos through the world. Social media has exceeded all the blockings of a repressive state, brought all the facts to light, defied traditional media and became the source of information.

And, the wave of revolution in the land of Libia, Algeria, Egypt and Syria in 2011: Arab Spring.

Arab Spring is the society movement that overthrows the dictators who had a long run with a bloody fight in a wide geographical area which includes North Africa and the Middle East.

The societies who are sick of the dictatorships of the likes Zinedin el Bin Ali, Hüsnü Mübarek and Muammer Kaddafi  have taken this to the streets. For these reasons, people set themselves on fire or get even at the streets. The society wanted change and development. They were sick of the oppressions, they got together and rebelled. They demonstrated their courage and their lives in this cause. They abided the politics of their governments for years and at last they gathered together and revolted.

Arab Spring will be remembered as a moment when societies step out as a new player in a new stage. These new powers have direct relationship with Internet and network Technologies. People now have new powers. Thanks to Internet, people now have the power to gather together quickly, to act on unforeseeable actions, to spread communication, to receive support from universal communication channels in their local events, to effect public opinion of world with the universal communication systems and to create oppressions on governments.

Through social media, people have the opportunity to come together and organize for the same goal. Social medias gathered speed and turned into activities thanks to this channel. Through the speed and the effect area of Internet people are now able to inform each other about the things they believe to be true and they invite each other to good sense. In this way, they stick together on almost every event and make their voices heard.