Ecological Movements' Limited Use of Social Media in Turkey: A Social Network Analysis of Ecology Union within Twitter

The social structure and class conflicts caused by the Industrial Revolution were the main sources of first social movements. In the 20th Century, as the conflict issues moved towards the third generation human rights axis, among new social movements which came up around cultural and social issues, ecological movements were the ones with an intense number of participants. Ecological movements which started as isolated attempts, extended their struggle arena considering the networking opportunities enabled by technological developments. This research aims to analyze the social network usage of ecological organizations which operate in Turkey. An in depth analysis of Twitter use of ecological groups has been made including their purposes, frequencies of Twitter usage, prominent environmental issues and actors. Content analysis has been used in order to determine the differences and similarities in Twitter using practices and to find out the prominent issues. On the other hand, relationships among actors who are active on the ecological network has been determined by social network analysis. The sample of the study has been formed by taking Ecology Union, formed by the gathering of 55 local ecological organizations, as its framework. The social network analysis reveals that the Ecology Union has limited effect in the network and Northern Forests Defence (Kuzey Ormanlari Savunmasi) is the most dominant actor. Through content analysis, it has been observed that ecological organizations use Twitter mostly to form ecological agenda and to inform their followers about the platform's actions and related developments. However, genuine tweets posted are limited. Another outcome of the research is that in Turkey's ecological network, Twitter is used only to a limited extend to activate masses.