Online Labour Activism In Turkey: An Analysis Of The Web-Based Activism Capacities Of The Alternative Media And The Labour Unions

Öz

The Internet and its activism power have been discussed in recent years. This study deals with the roles of class-based alternative media and the websites of two labour unions in providing a democratic platform and their potential for strengthening of the labour union movements and examines “Sendika.Org” as the voice of labour movement and the websites of two important labour unions, Confederation of Public Workers' Unions (KESK) and Confederation of Revolutionary Workers' Unions (DİSK), to reveal their potentials in triggering the labour movement and class-based discussions in society. In this context, this study focuses on the nature of social networking activism and the potential of the alternative media in the context of theoretical framework of the public sphere and online activism and it discusses the creative potential of the Internet as a public sphere. It also attempts to explain how these websites present themselves to the public and mobilise citizens and activists. Also, it analyses the websites' potential of political resistance towards the social inequalities and the class-based issues by using the content analysis method constituted by certain categories such as information provision, networking, participation, campaigning, and delivery. The aim of this study is to reveal to what extent the activists use these websites as means for mobilisation and how alternative media and the websites of the labour unions create an alternative public sphere among the online audience and how they encourage the activists to participate in the online and offline actions.
 
Keywords: Online activism, Internet, social media, public sphere, labour unions, DISK, KESK, sendika.org, class-based activism