Humour and sarcasm: expressions of global warming on Twitter

The increasing popularity of Twitter as a medium for sharing and debating scientific information brings forth questions about the type of narratives emerging around environmental/climate change and global warming. This article maps the landscape of narratives of how Twitter is used to communicate about environmental issues in Turkey. It displays how these actors can play a crucial role in constructing and/or de-constructing such crisis. I show how Twitter users in Turkey, use such medium to strengthen their own and the public’s awareness on global warming or to deny all together create a counter narrative and how certain frames that promote scepticism about environmental change are broadly disseminated by using certain emotional context. The analyses of the 1295 tweets collected using a random week sample displayed users who are sceptical about the Turkish government taking a more active stance toward climate change whereas the users supporting the government in general where more preoccupied with hoax arguments that in return may compromise trust in scientific authorities. The analysis combines thematic analysis of tweets and coding. I conclude the paper by conversing the significance of studying Twitter as a communicative platform that provides rich information displaying the existing dynamics.publishedVersio

Establishing networked misogyny as a counter movement: The analysis of the online anti-Istanbul convention presence

We now live in an age of unhidden gender wars where direct violence occurs within online and offline spaces. These online spaces on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram become venues for attacks on gender and woman’s rights, as well as its intersection with race and ethnicity. Such online hate expressions and networked harassments channelled towards women provide clues for us, social scientists, to understand the underlying dynamics/nature of misogyny. In this paper, by studying the online misogynistic narratives developed around the Istanbul Convention as a counter movement, I aim to highpoint the conservative and polarizing discourses that frames gender-based violence as acceptable in Turkey. More specifically I show how Twitter can be used as a platform for anti- feminist and misogynistic groups, aiming violence and hostility directly at women and their rights. As these tweets illustrate, the right-wing populist and anti-gender discourses and conservative and authoritarian politics, are being implemented on many fronts and social media is one of them.Establishing networked misogyny as a counter movement: The analysis of the online anti-Istanbul convention presencepublishedVersio

From discontent to action: #quarantinehotel as not just a hashtag

This article shows how Twitter users’ discontent with the quarantine hotel regulations in Norway turned into a digital protest. We discuss how the sharing and communication of messages through hashtags on Twitter facilitate the perception of the hashtag as a cultural object that activates a political agenda and perpetuates a digital social movement. This study used a novel approach to explore the significance of the echo chamber of emotions involved in digital protests and introduced stages of digital activism. The paper concludes by arguing that during a protest, the activists employ emotions as self-expressive tools that help them connect the issue at hand to bigger societal issues (structural discrimination and inequalities) and metaphors (prison and criminal behavior). Once this process starts, it further paves the way to reaching out for support, encouraging action from others, and demanding change from the government, as we show via the digital activism framework.publishedVersio

The search for alternative knowledge in the post-truth era: Anti-vaccine mobilization during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey

The search for alternative knowledge, conspiracy theories, distrust of expertise and anti-science movements are gaining momentum and post-truth populism is speeding up on the back of fake news. The crisis of truth refers to an era where evidence and objective facts get lost in sentiment, emotion, and personal beliefs. Relying on emotions, creationism, religious beliefs, and common sense over expertise deliberately creates counter-knowledge referred to as pseudo-science, troll-science or fake-science. As the worth of scientific expertise is devalued, the counter-scientific discourses supported through populist political rhetoric help to produce a culture of resistance to science. Our qualitative content analysis of Twitter posts along with the news regarding anti-vaccine arguments from two selected online news sites, revealed three major themes, which we referred to as strategies used by the COVID-19 vaccine deniers in Turkey to disseminate their views. These were: an emphasis on bodily freedom and personal choice and the use of “my body my choice” rhetoric; the denying, devaluing, and shifting of scientific evidence; and the dismissal and/or attacking of alternative views and the deepening of the polarisation between the supporters of the COVID-19 restrictions, vaccine supporters and deniers. We conclude the paper by arguing that there is a link between the distrust of doctors and the anti-vaccination ideas, and the quest for alternative knowledge and expert authority.publishedVersio

Disclosing gender-based violence online: strengthening feminist collective agency or creating further vulnerabilities?

The withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention (in March 2021) and the high prevalence of gender-based violence reflect the current patriarchal political atmosphere in Turkey. Such backlash occurred despite the strong feminist resistance and transnational support to combat anti-gender developments. In this political climate, online disclosures of gender-based violence have become critical in shaping public debates about violence against women in Turkey. In the last decade, we have witnessed a movement similar to #MeToo, whereby women shared their experiences of gender-based violence on Twitter. This paper is about six of these disclosures and how they formed networked feminist counterpublics. Through a qualitative study of our participants´ lived experiences of online disclosures, we aim to illustrate what responses and reactions they encountered in online spaces, how these reactions and responses affected their well-being, what online spaces offered to them to counteract their victimisation, and, finally, how these online disclosures contributed to feminist collective consciousness and agency in Turkey. Our findings reveal dual consequences of disclosing gender-based violence online, where these networked feminist counterpublics bring together the excluded stories and challenge the mainstream public knowledge, and yet, at the same time, result in backlashes and digital vulnerabilities.publishedVersio

A political game?: the dispute over the Canal Istanbul project

This study aims to understand how ideologies become embedded in political projects through strategies of legitimation aimed at justifying specific ideas, beliefs, and emotions. By using the political negotiation between the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) concerning the Canal Istanbul Project as an illustrative example from Turkey to ‘ideology in action’, this article shows how various rhetorical combinations appeal to an analysis of ‘ideology at work’. Our analysis is based on 20 in-depth interviews with both opponents and supporters of the project, in addition to a comparison of two official websites providing scientific evidence from each party’s perspective. The results show that the two poles of the dispute aim to recruit more people as their political supporters by using their own scientific reports with claims that they are ‘objective’ and aspire for the benefit of Istanbul.publishedVersio

Perceptions of gendered-challenges in academia: How women academics see gender hierarchies as barriers to achievement

Despite the egalitarian and collegial philosophy in its ideals, academic market is segregated and gendered where women receive fewer rewards than their male counterparts, are under-represented, segregated and excluded from participation in the formal and informal academic structures in academia. The country contexts, the gendered academic organizational settings as well as everyday interactions all play a major role not only in women's participation within academia, but also how they perceive their future in academic institutions. This research note, through an original survey with over 200 academics, attempts to study the latter assumption by looking at women academics' perceptions of their work life, their challenges, as well as aspirations. Our results show that those perceiving strong hierarchy in the realm of work are significantly more likely to believe that being woman in academia harms their job prospects. We also show that, not only were they pessimistic about the challenges facing them at the moment, but they were also more skeptical about women's potential in overcoming such challenges in the future.publishedVersio

Online disclosure, a mechanism for seeking informal justice?

Recent scholarship considers digital platforms’ potential to serve as sites for feminist counterspaces. ‘Speaking out’ or disclosing gender-based violence online allows survivors to give voice to their experiences and create a political arena for seeking informal forms of justice. What is significant in these instances is not a shift away from formal justice mechanisms but how the alternative ones take a survivor-focused approach to meet their needs and interests. The survivors who choose to disclose publicly – by describing their experiences in their own words – seek validation and solidarity and hold their perpetrators responsible for the harm they caused. Based on a multilevel justice approach, this research studies how – or whether – digital platforms enable community recognition and awareness regarding gender-based violence in Turkey. By exploring the experiences of six women from Turkey who were subjected to gender-based violence and disclosed online, we ask what justice means for our participants, why they chose to disclose digitally, and for what purposes. We consider their reasons for and experiences of such online disclosures and examine the extent to which these meet their justice needs. While it is evident that online spaces can function as sites of informal justice, it is vital to ask for whom and in which contexts justice can be achieved online. The data is analysed concerning the anti-gender resistance and the recent decline in human rights and judicial justice in Turkey.Online disclosure, a mechanism for seeking informal justice?publishedVersio

Persuasive narrative during the COVID-19 pandemic: Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg’s posts on Facebook.

This article explores the Facebook posts of Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg to highlight the key features of her crisis communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on data from Solberg’s Facebook posts from February 27, 2020 to February 9, 2021 (i.e., starting from the day when the first case of COVID-19 was recorded in Norway until the time of data collection for this study). Out of her 271 posts, 157 of them were about COVID-19 and were chosen for analysis. The analyses identified five major themes: (1) Promoting responsibility and togetherness (2) Coping (3) Being in control amidst uncertainty (4) Fostering hope and (5) Relating with the followers. Drawing inspiration from Boin, Stern and Sundelius’, work on persuasive narratives, this study shows the ways that Solberg’s posts about COVID-19 exhibit all five identified frame functions. In addition, the findings add contextual nuances to the frame functions through the theme of ‘Responsibilization and togetherness’, which are reflected through references to Norwegianness and the cultural concept and practice of dugnad. This study adds to our knowledge about how persuasive narratives are incorporated into the social media communication strategies of leaders and highlights the usefulness of this framework for studying ongoing and future crises.publishedVersio