Social Media's Role from Tahrir to Taksim

Certainly the most dramatic developments in the region over the weekend involved the deepening and spreading protests in Turkey. I will have some extended comments of my own some time later today, but until that's ready I wanted to refer you to a thoughtful piece elsewhere.

Prime Minister Erdoğan, who during the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions praised the role of social media in resisting unpopular governments, has made clear that he thinks his electoral majority should exempt him from social media attacks; over the weekend he attacked Twitter.

At Zeynep Tufekci's Technosociology blog, devoted to social media among other issues, the Turkish-American Tufekci discusses at some length this question: "Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki": that is, in Twitter hashtag terms, from Cairo's Tahrir to Istanbul's Taksim. The situations are not identical (Turkey is more evenly divided and the issues are quite different); but her analysis of the role of social media is worth your time. More on this from me later today.

"Istanbul Gas Festival"