Abstract
The democratic rights claimed to be enshrined but curtailed under the AKP government’s repressive regime was counterbalanced by Redhack, a Turkish hacktivist group online. Through their diverse tactics such as resistance, revelation and countering Redhack’s activity led to a digital transformation in Turkish politics. Redhack’s opposition is towards AKP’s neo-liberal patronage policies. The resistance took many forms: (1) defacing government websites that misuse public resources. (2) revelation to counter censorship against traditional media by the AKP government. By revealing documents related to AKP government’s corruption, Redhack led the way for traditional media to bring the issue to public scrutiny. The third tactic of taking direct action in the form of counter-attack came as a result of the Gezi Park Occupy Istanbul movement. Redhack actively used television to voice their agenda and called people to action. A networked discourse analysis that looks at mediation of playful tactics by hacktivists is a new transformative phase in how cyber security shifts from terrorism into information resistance, revelation and countering.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Digital Transformations in Turkey: Current Perspectives in Communication Studies |
| Editors | Banu Akdenizli |
| Place of Publication | Lanham, MD |
| Publisher | Rowman & Littlefield |
| Pages | 275-286 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780739191194 |
| Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 20 Mar 2015 |
Keywords
- hacktivism
- REDHACK
- Turkish media
- social media
