Communication has always been a crucial part of human existence. Being able to communicate in groups increases the chances of survival and allows groups to have better living conditions. Over time, this instinct that we have as human beings has led us to look for different and accessible ways to communicate and brought us to the Internet age. The way we communicate has transformed, and this transformation has shaped us and our societies in broad ways. These changes in social structures and communication channels have forced people to use new tools to express ideas and come together for a cause. The Internet has changed the way people organize and rebel against injustice. Over the last decade, the Internet has become one of the key elements for social movements and protests. It changed the formation of movements from its roots and, like any change in the past, raised questions. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMovements and revolutions are an important part of our social history, therefore they have fundamental importance for sociology. Movements are created by society, so understanding movements is a necessity for understanding society. This assignment seeks to focus on the emerging way of starting movements and turning them into revolutions. In his book “Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age,” Manuel Castells explores new types of protests and social movements that have occurred and continue to occur around the world. It focuses on how these protests and social movements developed with the help of the Internet and different communication systems and analyzes the importance of the Internet for the movements. In this essay I will examine how the Internet and its social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and many others gave birth to social movements and how other traditional platforms were a necessity as was the Internet; where the importance of the Internet for movements compared to the effectiveness of public space and the human body and the possible negative effects of using the Internet as the main social space for movements. I will consider several ideas from different theorists as well as the work of Manuel Castell. Throughout the history of social movements and protests, people have called for change for many different reasons and in many different ways. There was one thing in common that they all did: they fought for what they believed in using every tool at their disposal. Social and political movements needed to form a strong network to exist and act. Every protest and social movement in history has been made possible by people coming together and having a platform to talk about what is wrong in their country, their community, their workplace, and even their streets. Being able to reach as many people as possible has always been crucial for movements to achieve success. More people meant more support and being stronger. Becoming one against governments and injustices requires a tremendous amount of organizational skills and communication networks. The Internet was one of the many tools people used for their cause. In this part I will examine how the Internet was not the only social space used to reach people during the Egyptian revolution and the other platforms used during the movement that gave the protesters a chance that not all countries had during their struggle. The Tunisian revolution that overthrew the government, the Icelandic protests triggered by the crisisfinancial crisis and the way the government handled the crisis, the Egyptian revolution against the corrupt government, the events that happened in Spain in 2011, occupy Wall Street and its global impact, Gezi Park Movement that happened in Turkey, protests began against the increase in prices of public transport in Brazil and the student movement in Chile. All these revolutions and movements have common aspects with each other and with other events that have occurred throughout history. Economic motives, police brutality, corruption in governments, the fight for equality… What makes them significantly different from the rest of history is the way these networks of movements used the Internet to communicate with each other, with the world and exist in one social space. .The Internet was new in the movement landscape, it made the dissemination of information easier than ever but was it enough to reach as many people as possible? The Internet allowed these movements to arise and even have a global impact, but was it only the Internet that transformed the movement into a revolution? Was it enough to reach out to the entire community and educate people about the cause? Does the Internet reach every family and enjoy the trust of all members of society? The Egyptian revolution did not rely solely on the power of the Internet to bring people together for the cause. The revolution, without a doubt, is one of the most important revolutions that shows how an intelligently organized network and the use of the Internet have united people to change the country. The spark that started the Egyptian protest was a vlog filmed by a university student. This spark became something with the help of youth movements and the help of Facebook groups. However, later, the part of society that did not have the possibility to reach the Internet platforms was informed in different ways. It was important to reach a wider audience. The young Egyptians were lucky because the Friday sermons were great for the cause. Friday (which first became part of the culture due to religious beliefs but now is more than that, it allows people to gather and have the opportunity to socialize) since it was a holiday, it was crucial in reaching the society of older generations and inform them about events. It also helped gain more support for anti-government demonstrations. It was a huge part of building a network among the audience. Activists had the space to talk to people firsthand and reach a more diverse audience. This helped build more confidence around the protests and allowed activists to reach more people. The other platform that helped the revolution a lot was broadcast television. In my view, although the Egyptian revolution began to gain voice with the help of the Internet and Friday sermons, the most powerful source it had was the Al Jazeera media network. Al Jazeera broadcast the events firsthand to the whole world and to Egypt and supported the protesters until the last day. It gives protesters the chance to be heard by many countries. Al Jazeera's position as a channel during the protests was also very important to the public. Even today, broadcast television is very influential for most people around the world. The Internet and social media are not considered as reliable as television, and television is capable of reaching more audiences. To argue that television broadcasts gave activists an important platform during the Egyptian Revolution, I will mention another movement that did not have the same kind of platform and support. The events that occurred in Türkiye in 2013, known asGezi protests, have qualities in common with the Egyptian revolution. The Gezi protests began as a youth movement, like the Egyptian revolution, and then gained support from other groups in society. Both movements have used the Internet effectively to communicate and tell the world what they are protesting about. Both have used the Internet as a platform to broadcast firsthand what is happening in the streets. This was crucial in drawing attention to their cause and showing the world how their government was dealing with the protests. What the Gezi protesters didn't have was the help Egypt received from the Al Jazeera media network. During the most violent days of the Gezi protests, the largest and most influential television channels broadcast nothing about the protests. People who did not have ready access to the Internet, mainly to social media, had no information about a huge protest taking place in the center of the largest city in the country where they live. They were not informed about most of the protests and the extreme police brutality. Turkey's tax-funded national public broadcaster, known as TRT, broadcast a documentary about penguins on the night when the protests were really heated, which later became the symbol of the oppressed media in the country. After the events spread across the country, TV channels started broadcasting, but the news took the side of the government and portrayed the protesters as the government wanted. People following news about the protests through Turkish media accessed only limited and tightly controlled government information. This caused a huge rift in the country and the protests failed to have the support of the majority of society, so the government had the power to portray the protesters as terrorists and gained the support of almost half of the public against the protests. The importance of other social platforms, such as community meetings and television broadcasts, is still very influential and therefore crucial for movements to achieve success. Living in the Internet age does not mean that every single person has access to it and welcomes it as a reliable source of information. It is a fact that the Internet plays an important role for the movements that have emerged in the last decade by creating a platform where the movement can freely exist in its reality, but is this the most important thing? In this part of my essay I will examine the importance of the control of public space and the human body for social movements born in the digital world. The Occupy movement (which started as Occupy Wall Street and spread across the world) is a great example of combining the wise use of public space and the Internet to make the movement successful. Occupy Wall Street is a movement that began on the Internet and has continued to grow online during the protests. Online interaction on the topic has been extremely high and related content has spread across all social media platforms. The movement has gained voice across online platforms and brought serious attention to the topic with the help of social media. It started with a hashtag and was identified with the hashtag. The hashtag that started the movement – ​​#occupywallstreet – was a literal call to occupy Wall Street. However, the movement continued to grow online for months before the first public demonstration took place. The demonstration of occupation of Wall Street (and many other spaces around the world after the movement went global) attempted to demonstrate that the places occupied by people already belonged to the occupiers. The movement had more than one purpose forits nature, but the occupation of the streets and parks of the Wall Street neighborhood was strategically and symbolically crucial to the movement. In his book “Networks of Outrage and Hope,” Manuel Castells examines these events by focusing on their intense use of the Internet as a platform for the movement. To challenge the idea that the Internet provides the best social space for movements, I will mention David Harvey's work on the importance of public space for movements. While Castells brings attention in his work to how the movement arose and evolved digitally and how it depended on the Internet in many aspects, in addition to having an organization to occupy public space, Harvey argues that the most important aspect of the platform for the Occupy movements it is people in the body and ownership of space. In his blog post “The Wall Street Party Meets Its Nemesis,” David Harvey argues for the importance of public space by writing: …Occupy Wall Street's tactic is to occupy a central public space, a park or square, close to where many of the levers of power are centered, and by placing human bodies there, you convert public space into a political asset, a place of open discussion and debate about what that power is doing and how best to oppose the its scope… It shows us that collective power, the power of bodies in public space, is still the most effective tool of opposition when all other access routes are blocked. He states that taking part in the movement personally, taking a public space under control as a whole, and using that public space as a platform during the movement is the most important act for success. However, Castells explains the achievements of the Occupy movement with the successful use of Internet networks. According to Castells, “social networks on the Internet mobilized enough support for people to come together and occupy public space, territorializing their protest.” The websites and Facebook groups that were created “…served as sites to organize the movement, but also to create a public presence for it.” He also adds that this creation was crucial to the goals and clarity of the movement. It is clear that the role of public space and the Internet has been enormous for the growth of movements, however it is possible to argue that taking control of public space is more effective for governments as it causes an undeniable disruption in daily life and requires immediate action. We have established that it is inevitable to use social media platforms (if accessible in the country) for the movements that are forming in this era. To answer the question of how important the Internet is to social movements, we need to explore how it might also be harmful to movements. It is a fact that the Internet is a platform that allows us to reach people from all over the world and gives us instant access to information. This means that it also allows us to support a movement or protest that is taking place on the streets from the location of our choice, which is usually a safe and welcoming environment. According to many theorists, this reality of the Internet age devalues ​​the importance of the movement and causes a negative impact. In their article; "Internet and Social Movement Action Repertoires", published in the journal Information, Communication & Society, Jeroen Van Laer and Peter Van Aelst bring attention to this Internet reality that is defined as "keyboard activism". They claim that this type of activism; “…could come at the expense of real actions that require more effort. People may not feel motivated to engage in actions with a higher threshold because they can more easily pursue social and political change by clicking on a?