Reflection 1 - Sarah Turkaly

I chose the Turkey focus for this assignment, because I have limited knowledge of the events of the Gezi Park protests, but hope to learn more. In our preliminary research the group came across a multitude of articles demonstrating the impacts of social media and mobile devices on the movement. Most notably, the government’s own social media reactions were unique. For example, due to the protesters extreme social media use to document police brutality and other abuses, the government created its own social media accounts and used them to “troll” protesters and clog social media feeds. I hope to look into citizen reactions to these government actions.

Another interesting aspect of the events of the Gezi Park protests that I hope to research further is the ownsership of the penguin symbol by the protesters themselves. While the penguin documentary was originally used by CNN to block views of the protests in Turkey, protesters claimed the penguin as a symbol of media censorship and dressed in penguin costumes, spray-painted penguin images, and more to add a comical aspect to the protests. Observing the transition of the penguin from censorship to a symbol of unity against censorship through social media will be interesting.

Another aspect of the protests that I found interesting was the physical lay out of the protest encampment. According to one map of the park during the height of the protests, groups were organized into “neighborhoods” by religion, ethnicity, and other diverse classifications. I hope to look into this further to see if these divides became apparent in the online, social media aspects of the movement.