Collective Action and Social Movements

Why do people join into a social movement? Who do people place their trust into when they join those movements? Those are a couple of questions asked when people look at how and who is putting a message or call to action out into the world. With the rise of social media, people have a one stop shop for information of protests going on. Now with things like Facebook Live and Periscope, you are right in the middle of it action and anyone can see what is going on. But, is that the whole story? Framing Theory can be applied to see how people are portraying what is going on.

During the Gezi Protests in Turkey, the question of social identification and trust was brought up. Many of the protesters did not have a political affiliation. The article by Haciyakupoglu and Zhang found that in a country with mass media being silenced by the government, social media was the main source of information. This does not come without risks. Risks of made up news stories, risk of false threats to safety were just a couple of things that could have circulated on the mass media. That only increased the trust people had in sender of the message.

I recommend reading the article on the Gezi Protest.