Activist Communication Design on Social Media: the Case of Online Solidarity Against Forced Islamic Lifestyle

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between connective and collective group identity through the example of “You Won’t Walk Alone,” a social media platform of solidarity for women suffering from the pressures of Islamic dress code in Turkey. While Turkey has a long history of conservative women’s initiatives against secular institutional code and of secular women against Islamic and misogynist social reactions, the social media platform You Won’t Walk Alone (Yalnız Yürümeyeceksin) illustrates a striking self-reflexivity of women mobilizing against their very own conservative communities. The research is based on multimodal content analysis of the posts including both images and texts in order to grasp to what extent social media offers a genuine public space for anonymous participants of the online platform as opposed to digitally networked movements which primarily reflect personalized agency. We analyze how connective and collective group identity can be correlated in this case in which online participants build solidarity by sharing content anonymously. Hence, this article questions the ways in which activist design of communication affects and shapes activism through this case study.