Political communication processes in the context of new social movements: Cultural struggle and the search for hegemony

This study focusses on the communities, which-in terms of new social movements-are in a struggle for "social change" and that are in search of hegemony. The aim of this study is to highlight the political communications, cultural productions, discourse construction and the methods/strategies of media use in the context of their search for hegemony that social movement groups, who do not abide by the current political and cultural hegemony, enter into. While the scope of the study is based upon a field study ethnomethodology that includes data collection techniques like participant observation and in-depth interview, the study has tried to achieve a methodological wholeness by enrichening the outputs of various activist practices in the media and cultural environment with contextual analysis. Two main conclusions were drawn from the study. The first of which is that the continuity problem caused by the loose ties on which the new social movements, which have been organized over the internet and which mobilize over the internet have been based, can be eliminated through extensive face to face communication, offline mobilization and the prioritization of the interaction between online and offline environments. The second is that the social movement groups' search for hegemony based on long term strategies, and the practices aimed at cultural struggle and social change can continue to exist as a pressure group within civil society even after the social movements of these communities have become extinguished.