The effects of new media on the new social movements: Analysis of social network sites practices of LGBTI movement in Turkey

Internet has changed many structures within the society. There are new identity-based social movements among these structures. As many other movements, the LGBTI (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex) movement concerning the identities of LGBTI used the Internet based social network sites in accordance with their own identity movements after the 2000s. Therefore, it is possible to mention about the LGBTI movement as a new networking style that may be an example for the social network site practices of the new social movements. Determination of the reasons why the LGBTI groups in Turkey glided from off-line media to the online media and the reasons of existing forms, how the LGBTI movement changed by means of social network sites as a result of this existing style and what kind of a communication culture has been established in the context of social movements of this transformation caused by social networking sites consist the reason of this study. In this study, semi-structured interviews were performed with the administrators of LGBTI movement communities' Facebook and Twitter pages, an online questionnaire was made with the page followers and a non-reacting observation was made concerning the sharing of the pages during the Pride Week, which was deemed as most important activity out of Internet. It is aimed to present the findings and interpretations by comparing and analyzing the data obtained by these three methods. In the context of the LGBTI movement in Turkey, which communication practices the social network sites provide to the social movement subjects and how these practices were used are presented by interpreting how the LGBTI movement in Turkey used the social network sites as a communication platform.