Rich (New) Media Poor Activism Debates on Activism Movements in New Media

Year 2019, Issue: 56, 179 - 208, 27.06.2019

Akan Yanık Mikail Batu

Abstract

The convergence of the Internet and the media has enormously transformed the way in which the communication and interaction potential not only of the people, but also of the machines with their surroundings, and expanded their forms of participation. While the new media, which is the result of this convergence, has come to the forefront with its functional benefits as a catalyst such as information searching, expressing ideas, socializing and entertainment, its transformational role on media literacy and communication behaviours should also not be overlooked. Today, it is not difficult to predict that this transformational role will have much wider effects considering that people from every generation are heavy new media users and that even offline world interactions are virtual. In this study, we thought that it is vital to investigate how the activism ability of humans that made them the subject of their era will be transformed with the new media and what the effects will be, especially in the 

light of ideological theories. Therefore, by studying the effects of the new media within the scope of activism, we tried to present the new media-activism relations, new types of digital activism, differences between these types and discussions under different perspectives. In this study, which tries to shed light on the effect of online cyber activism on real-life activism, firstly cyber activism types were gathered under a typology and then discussions on these types were tried to be presented with the interpretations of two different fronts. The discussions between ‘media carta’ approach, which sees the new media as the new tool of democratization and points out to its success on recent international examples, and ‘slacktivism’ approach claiming that cyber activism creates a sense of misunderstanding and undermines real-life activism were interpreted. 

Keywords

Activism, internet, new media, cyber activism, criticism

Yeni Medyada Aktivizm Hareketleri Üzerine Zengin Medya Kısır Aktivizm Tartışmaları

Abstract

İnternet ve medya yakınsaması yalnızca insanların değil makinelerin de çevreleriyle olan iletişim ve etkileşim kurma potansiyelini önemli ölçüde dönüştürmüş ve katılım biçimlerini genişletmiştir. Bazı yakınsamaların sonucu olan yeni medyanın bir katalizör olarak, bilgi arama, fikirleri ifade etme, sosyalleşme ve eğlence gibi fonksiyonel faydaları öne çıksa da medya okuryazarlığı ve iletişim davranışları üzerindeki dönüştürücü rolü gözden kaçmamalıdır. Günümüzde farklı yaşlardan kişilerin, yoğun bir şekilde yeni medya kullanıcısı olduğu ve çevrimdışı dünya etkileşimlerinin de sanal olabildiği göze alındığında bu dönüştürücü rolün çok daha geniş etkilere sahip olacağını tahmin etmek mümkündür. Bu çalışmada, özellikle ideoloji kuramları ışığında, kişileri, döneminin öznesi yapan aktivizm yeteneğinin günümüzde yeni medyayla nasıl bir dönüşüm geçirdiği ve etkilerinin ne olduğu yönündeki araştırmanın büyük önem taşıdığı düşünülmektedir. Dolayısıyla yeni medyanın etkilerini aktivizm çerçevesinden inceleyerek, yeni medya-aktivizm ilişkisi, yeni dijital aktivizm türleri, bu türler arasındaki farklılıklar ve tartışmalar, farklı bakış açıları altında sunulmaya çalışılmıştır. Çevrimiçi siber aktivizmin gerçek yaşam aktivizmi üzerindeki etkisine ışık tutmaya çalışan bu çalışmada, öncelikle siber aktivizm türleri bir tipoloji altında toplanmış daha sonra bu türler üzerindeki tartışmalar iki farklı cephenin yorumlarıyla sunulmaya çalışılmıştır. Yeni medyayı demokratikleştirmenin yeni aracı olarak görüp uluslararası güncel örneklerdeki başarısını işaret eden ‘medya carta’ anlayışı ile siber aktivizmin yanlış bir fark yaratma duygusu yaratıp gerçek yaşam aktivizmini baltaladığını iddia eden ‘slacktivizm’ anlayışı arasındaki tartışmalar yorumlanarak ele alınmıştır. 

Keywords

Aktivizm, internet, yeni medya, siber aktivizm, eleştiri

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