Paper short abstract:

The relationship between social movements and communication media appears to become prominent as there supposedly lies the potentiality of a societal transformation and in this connection, in the paper to be presented, the scope of social media's impact on social movements will be argued.

Paper long abstract:

The relationship between social movements and communication media appears to become prominent as there supposedly lies the potentiality of a societal transformation. It is easy to observe that political activists utilize new media as an onset to give voice to their discontent about public issues, organize protests and mobilize thousands of protestors into city squares and streets. In this regard, arguments towards the relationship between digital networks and collective movements from a technological reductionist perspective seem to became prevalent.

Taking into account the role of Web 2.0 which enables social networks in mediating social movements, in this paper I will focus on the question of to what extent social media contributes to social movements by exemplifying recent social movements that occurred in Egypt, Turkey, Iran and the Philippines respectively. While doing so, I will adopt a perspective discussing said relationship in regards to digital activism.