NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND VIRTUAL REALITY DIMENSION AT GEZİ PARK PROTESTS

Inflexible and hierarchical organizational models, which were dominant in the past, are now being replaced by more flexible, distributed and heterogeneous structures. the main reason for this is the belief that the requirement of putting effective actions in short notice is easier in flexible structures. in this point, the social movements that we can define as the formations which are the movements that either supports or oppose changes in this specific area of social life is closely related with social problems. as such, these movements are more effective on converting the issues that is not even related to majority of the society into a social problem and producing possible solutions to them. today's social movements utilize new communications technologies more and at their organizational and communications processes. at this point, especially the internet has become the main medium of communication. the internet has led many alternative media channels most notably itself, by promoting participatory democracy with the virtual public spaces it has created on one hand; while on the other hand providing a medium for the voices of the groups that are not represented in the global commercial media network. in the light of the above mentioned facts, in this study, gezi park protest movements that started in taksim/istanbul and spread into several other cities in a short time will be examined. the teachings of social movement theory and the first-week-news in the press will form the basis of this study, which will be held under the headings of the actors of the movement, types of actions and methods of communications. the results of the study suggest that in general,the first phase of violence-free demonstrations is in consistent with the teachings of the new social movements.