The Evolution of Communication Strategies by Public Administration during Gezi Protests - Research Paper Example

Assignment Coversheet - Programme MSc in Strategic Communication and Public Relations Module Research for Dissertation Module Code: PREP64 Assignment Title: Research Proposal Word Count: 2867 Student ID Number: 2329790 Date of Submission: 09.01.2015 Name of Tutor (if appropriate): William Dinan Seminar Subject/Group (if appropriate): History Please note this template has been produced on Microsoft Office Word 2007  I have read and understood the policy on plagiarism (please tick) Excellent Very Good Satisfactory Needs some more work Needs much more work Subject Relevance ............ ............ ............ ............ ........... Structure ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Critical Analysis ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Use of Evidence ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Insight & Originality ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Grammar & Syntax ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Spelling ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Presentation of references ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ Marker’s General View of the Work: THE EVOLUTION OF COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES BY PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION DURING GEZI PROTESTS Abstract The Public Square Movement which was called the Occupation of Gezi Park started on May 28, 2013, to protest against the implementation of an urban management project. This paper will discuss the evolution of communication strategies and analyse the Gezi Movement from the perspective of government’s attitude towards the protestors and the public. In this movement, women were taught to be much more effective than men. This paper will discuss the Gezi Protests, which refer to the protests by Turkish people, in May, 2013, meant to demonstrate against the urban development plant for Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park. It will include a literature review of the materials used to come up with the research and also a brief hypothesis of the paper. It will also discuss the methodology, ethical issues in the research question, proposed timeline to implement the findings, as well as the implications of the research. Introduction The Public Square Movement merely started as a small protest but later turned into a huge movement of worldwide recognition on May 28, 2013. The main reason which changed this small protest into a movement was the disproportionate use of power by the police and authorities against the young, non-violent activists group. It made them gain a new voice and unity, which represented the aleardy in existence social dynamic force that had challenged the continual political norm for the past 12 years. As Nilüfer Göle (2013) stated in her commentary, the Gezi Movement has been compared with other protests in the history such as the Arab Spring and the Tahrir Square Movement. She stated that; “Similarities were drawn to the “May 68” youth protest movement in France. The Tahrir Square” movement in Egypt and the “Arab Spring” came to mind. But the movements in the capitals of Western cities, such as “Occupy Wall Street” and the “Les Indignes,” were also given as examples to understand the anti-capitalist stand of the Gezi protest movement.” (pg.8) The Gezi Movement was believed to be to all these movements mentioned above, and even though, there seems to be similarities, this movement was unique and distinct. Most of media coverage in the world framed the Gezi Protests as similar to Arab Spring Simply because the included mass protests that lead to the killing of innocent lives and taking away the demonstrating rights of citizens (Simon, 2015; Gezi, 2013; and Göle, 2013). Gezi Protest was not the same or similar to Arab Spring because Turkey’s political structure is too different from Arab political. Turkey has a parliamentary system. In the meantime, some Turkish people were anxious as this movement was thought to be similar to Arab Spring. They were also worried about Turkey’s economical consistency and unity. Literature Review Gezi Movement supporters wanted to express how much they had felt under pressure for a long time. According to them, they were not free enough to live in a true democracy as they did 10 years ago. Especially the last few years, the authorities tried to damage Atatürk and his principles. They wanted to impose their own conservative ideologies upon the public (Gezi, 2013). It was a vital violence against the Kemalists. They did not want to allow the politicians make them feel like that. As Armağan Gezi (2013) stated in his article; “Beyond the secular-religious divide, many opposition figures see the governments restrictions of basic human rights as the crux of the protests”.(pg.7) The Prime Minister was heavily vioaltiong people’s private lifes and ideologies. The interference to people’s life choices began to be seen as obnoxious and started to fuel the energy of public’s reaction. To give an example of Turkey’s ruling AK Party government controversial social policies; They have been using gender and creating regulations in terms of sex and reproduction, woman’s body has been used in attempt to create those social policies such as; downsizing the woman’s role in the society for reproducing and mothering. The government even made “abortion and elective cesarean at birth” its policy topic (Gezi, 2013). Those were the main reason why women were also very active during the Gezi Movement to raise their voice and say in a way “enough is enough”. One of the many important symbolic figures of the Gezi Movement was “The Woman in a Black Dress,” which she was that the protests were truly peaceful (Simon, 2015). It was an important symbolic figure which reflects the woman’s role within the protests. Even though Erdoğan became a leader via elections, he tried to rule like a king rather than a prime minister. People wanted to fight against his rules and enforcement on his speeches. This movement put all kinds of people together as Göle stated in her article; “Ordinary people from all walks of life, beliefs, political opinions, and sexual orientation have joined in this unique act of defiance against an absolutist power that does not know where to stop in its usurpation of basic rights and its interference with the most private spheres of human life.”(2013,pg.10-11) In addition to this statement Özden Sözalan (2013) added her own definition to this pluralistic and civilian movement like that; “The Gezi movement managed to unite people around a tree, against the polarizing rhetoric and politics of the government. People with disparate ideas and lifestyles – young and old, students and bureaucrats, feminists and housewives, Islamists and leftists, Kurds and Alawites, Besiktas fans and Fenerbahce fans – who would not normally be seen together, were united.” (pg.148) Apart from this controlling and moralizing drift, it is Erdogans tone and style of address, which have deeply offended the public. Sözalan (2013) refers to his opponents in a pejorative manner, as "marginal," "scum" (çapulcu), "thugs," or even "drunkards". This remarks, formerly commended for their honesty and occasionally hilarious, turned into an unpleasant, patronizing, and contemptuous rhetoric. Both AK party government and especially the prime minister’s style and tone of address offended the supporters of the Gezi Movement by often calling them as if they were “thugs”, “scum” instead of paying attention and listening to their demands. If they had listened to their citizens’ demands and speeches carefully, there might not have been so much damage, deaths and conflicts between the public and the police. During the Gezi protests, there were a large number of people who had absolutely no clue about what was going on the streets especially elderly people. They were not interested in using the social platforms so often, but rather hear news from traditional channels such as TVs and newspapers. Depending on such media only is not reliable. As Zeynep Tüfekçi also mentioned in her article; “Almost every mass-media outlet in Turkey is owned by the same large conglomerates that also do significant business with the government and vie for the lucrative urban renewal, energy and construction projects which have fuelled Turkeys economic growth. These outlets rarely publish anything critical of the government and have been known to come out with identical (government-friendly) headlines on certain critical days.”(2013, pg.131) Expanding on this, the last daily to publish a story on corruption by the AKP was smacked by a surprise, multi-billion US-dollar tax fine that was afterwards "forgiven" by the government following the moderation of the coverage. Thus, when the furst few dozen protesters attempting to protect the trees in Gezi from demolition faced the pepper-spray, bulldozers, water cannons, as well as tear-gas, they turned to Twitter instead of customary media to spread the word. Now everybody knows in our age that internet can play a significant role during the political protests. Public from all over the country came together and sent their voices out there. In their messages, they supported their fellows who took part in the Gezi Movement, thus digital platform started being seen as destructible tools by the AK party government. As the situation escalated, citizens who turned on their televisions to see the news about ongoing clashes in the middle of the central square of the most populous city in Turkey instead saw ... penguin documentaries and cooking shows. The media thought they were ridiculing the people (Paul, 2014). So the public felt like they had to act. In the meantime, authoritarian trend continued with Prime Minister Erdoğan’s announcement about his annoyance with Twitter referring to the social media as “nuisance”, this was an early sign of a forthcoming ban. Then the parliament pushes two controversial laws; one of them was an opening gate to increase power over the Supreme Council of The Jugdes and Prosecutors(HSYK), the second one was a new internet law as the policy analyst Amanda Paul(2014) stated in her commentary; “internet law which allowed the Communication Technologies Institution, a branch of the government, to take control of the internet. This paved the way for the Twitter ban with Erdoğan threatening to go further and also shut down Youtube and Facebook.” (pg.2) After the third election win for AKP in 2011 Erdoğan notably adopted autocratic tendencies and justiying his divisive speeches amongst the public by using the term of “AKP’s fifty percent” (Paul, 2014). According to them democracy starts and ends at the election box. Their policies made many Turks alienated and at the same time damaging the view of the country in the global world. Instead of adressing the real concerns of protestors, which could have strenghtened the AKP party, they continued repressing the force of the movement with the same old mind-set of democracy, that they want a peaceful name first then settle the issues. The Prime Minister continued to give speeches about conspracy theories both international and domestically and claimed that foreigners who envy Turkey’s rise are trying to end his rule. He also claimed that those people were working with the help of a “parallel state”. Along with the credibility of these claims; there were provacators amongst the protestors who have obviously not there because of the same purpose rather they were trying to create a violence and chaotic figure on the squares (Paul, 2014). Not only none of these were justified with accurate facts but also the government forces continued to increase their cruelty towards the protestors. Joel Simon (2015) gives places to one of the prominent international journalist’s expressions based in İstanbul; “The Gezi Protests did two things, they exposed the authoritarian nature of the government, and they simultaneously made the government more authoritarian”(pg.43) As understood from above statement; things were started to feed itself in this vicious cycle. Research Question/Hypotheses During this movement we can count as every step the Government take as a communication strategy and a way of message dissemination. This paper will focus on which channels used and how the public administration chose to act towards protestors. Thus, it will ask this question: “ To what extent were the authorities and Erdoğan Prime Minister successfull and what types of communication strategies did he follow as a leader?” This paper will evaluate the government’s success in terms of their ability to listen the voice of the public, transparency, collobration and democratic approach. It is predicted that this research question will concluded that the government failed to show the ability to democratically deal with the movement. Erdoğan and his party authorties would maybe have gathered all kinds of citizens together and given them equality. However, he made his citizenship feel negative discrimination. His public are divided into two groups; people who are supporters of his policies and others who do not want to admire and obey his rules and policies. To sum up; he was successfull in carrying out his rules he put and public administration but not about the sense of equality. He should have followed the positive communication strategies, such as listening who wants to raise their voices. If he had done it like that he would have strengthened his party. Methodology To be able to answer of research question, the following methodological approach has been found appropriate for the data gathering and analysis. To be fair in every aspects of research, we will talk to different spokesmen and delegates that were related to the groups took part in the Gezi Protests concerning their communicatons strategies. In addition to these talks, a survey is going to be conducted among these spokesmen and delegates, using telephone directories as the sampling frame and an adequate response rate will be ensured by presenting these people with our research purpose. Thus, this research will analyze media reporting and will be based on statistical data gathering through structered interview, comperative analysis and content analysis. The sampling criteria will include the users of normal media and users of social media. Those people are thought to be chosen among the important characters and their roles they played such as; Taksim Solidarity Union, TGB(TURKISH YOUTH UNION), University Students( Two-different) and the spokesmen of AK Party Youth Department. The interview is planned to be made with TGB, Taksim Solidarity Union and Ak Party Youth Department. On the other hand as a primary resources; press realeses, social media comments, vidoe covarages will be gathered as a data and analyzed. These data will mainy consist the power rates of polic force and public’s reaction against this power. Ethical Issues Some of the problems which can be faced and defined as ethical issues as during conducting this research. There are various problems can occur while making a social research. Some of them are accurate for this research such as; the possibility of violating the social bondaries of the others. The trust is very important at the phase of interviews and surveys, attitudes of the respondents might change in acorrdance with their trust of confidentiality of the responses. Since the research topic itself is sensitive, the questions might be offensive or disturbing to some various part of the public or interviewers. So, the purpose of this research is to build appropriate form of interview and survey questions in terms of having the most possible amount of attendants. As Elenaor Singer(1984) mentioned some of the effects to get a nonresponse such as suspicousness like this; “Attitudes of suspiciousness toward research—as measured, for example, by seeing risks in being interviewed, by requiring a signature to document consent, or by saying that there were some questions the research organization had no business asking—were consistently and significantly related to nonresponse, whether measured by single items or by an index consisting of several items.”(pg.506) It is understood that one of the most important parts while conducting this research is to create trust on the respondents. We will carefully consider questios of anonymity and confidentiality. Proposed Timeline Given the time frame for the dissertation period starts from April till September, it is a six month period. Since this time period is limited, it is planned to start for the necessary literature scan in the middle of second semester and also create the required survey and interview questions in March and tailor them in accordance with the target. Later on; planned survey and interview will be performed in April or May. After doing the survey and making the interview; press release, social media comments and all the data related to video coverage samples will be gathered to be carried out in June. All these data gathered will be analysed and processed into statistical degree. Thus the research phase will be finalized in the middle of July. After the middle of July, the remaining time frame will be used in order to connect the research figures with theories and hypothesis. Implications and Conclusions There will be several implications and limitations while doing this research. Since its nature is to reveal government’s attitude towards the protestors and the public, it is presumable that mostly people will be highly sceptical about the confidentiality of this research and its purpose. A lot of people will be abstaining or will not be comfortable to give their transparent ideas. Especially the supporters of the current AK party government will highly be resistant to participate in the interview or surveys. Because for them even from the starting point this was not a cause environmentalist stand against the deconstruction of Gezi Park, it was an organized political coup conspiracy with the aim of putting end to the ruling government. Other than interview and surveys; at the same time there will be also credibility issues and question marks above the data from press releases, social media comments, video coverages. The main reason for this issue is the fact that there was active censorship from the government at those times. For this reason, media sources evaluation will be open to discussion and questions. It should not be forgotten that in a modern age; especially within the digital environment anybody can easily edit and shape the news into their own advantages and set their own agenda. In overall these surveys will make clear the sense of public and anxieties against the government and they will also express if there are still conflicts between the government and the public. Thanks to interviews; it will make sure what the authorities and the unions that took part in the Gezi Movements still have the same senses and what sort of attitudes they will follow. Media data will also reflect how the public were affected during the Gezi Park protest and what they still think about this movement’s reflection. To sum up; this research will also bring a light towards the faith of public’s future, civil rights, freedom of speech, free journalism and most importantly the stability of the economy in Turkey. Word Count: 2755 Student Number: 2329790 Appendix Gezi Protest Movement Animation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfk8RyhN-HQ A look back for 2013 ın Turkey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c24y0wZszz4 Reference Lıst Amanda Paul- 26 March 2014- European Policy Centre- Turkey votes: Part I - The storm before the election-pg.2 Armağan Gezi(2013) JULY/AUGUST 2013 | DOLLARS & SENSE | pg.7 Eleneaor Singer (1984) Vol.11 Journal Of Consumer Research- Public Reactions to Some Ethical Issues of Social Research: Attitudes and Behavior-pg.506 Joel Simon (2015) Columbia University Press- The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom-pg.43 Nilüfer Göle(2013)-Insight Turkey Volume 15, No.3-pp.7-14, Gezi – Anatomy of a Public Square Movement- (pg.8) Nilüfer Göle(2013)-Insight Turkey Volume 15, No.3-pp.7-14, Gezi – Anatomy of a Public Square Movement- (pg.10-11) Özden Sözalan(2013)- Volume.2 Number 1- The International Journal of Badiou Studies- ISSN 2049-9027-pg.148 Zeynep Tüfekçi(2013)- The Author.Juncture 2013 IPPR- pg.131 Read More