Finally, social media were used for the government’s propaganda through humor. The citizens demanding their rights framed the concept of Gezi through various ways such as posters, banners, graffitis, and caricatures. Nevertheless, political humor was the powerful weapon and the useful tool to form a political presence in the country during the Gezi. Nancy K. Baym argues that humor can be very significant to create social meaning in the online environment. In her work “The Performance of Humor in Computer-Mediated Communication,” she suggests “humor serves at least four social functions; it aids self presentation, facilitates the creation of common understanding, and helps generate solidarity and group identity” (Baym n.p.). In other words,
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In the tweet, the user said: “This is hilarious! ‘Çapulcu penguin (bigger version on request).’” The penguin represents the activists who were not televised by the mainstream media. Since TV channels preferred to broadcast penguin documentaries instead of the ongoing protests from all quarters of the country, adopting the image of penguin seemed a good solution to take the TV channels’ attention to the protest. The penguin has nothing else but a blue tissue covering its mouth to be protected from pepper gas. It looks like the activist penguin is about to throw a bunch of flowers at an invisible enemy. What is remarkable is that the flowers symbolize the peaceful and nonviolent characteristics of the Gezi movement, as well as acknowledging the flowers as the only object can be thrown by the activists remarks the harmless feature of the Gezi activists. In short, political humor provided a way of responding to misinformation on media and misrepresentations of protestors in non-violent ways. Gezi activists used this parody as a way to express their problems by exaggerating certain claims to bring out their inconsistencies. Political satire as a final point of the framing function of social media during Gezi can suggest that “because humor relies on group norms, knowledge, practices, and problems, it provides a way to deal with problematic issues within the group, to generate unique identities and to create group identity and solidarity” (Baym
In the tweet, the user said: “This is hilarious! ‘Çapulcu penguin (bigger version on request).’” The penguin represents the activists who were not televised by the mainstream media. Since TV channels preferred to broadcast penguin documentaries instead of the ongoing protests from all quarters of the country, adopting the image of penguin seemed a good solution to take the TV channels’ attention to the protest. The penguin has nothing else but a blue tissue covering its mouth to be protected from pepper gas. It looks like the activist penguin is about to throw a bunch of flowers at an invisible enemy. What is remarkable is that the flowers symbolize the peaceful and nonviolent characteristics of the Gezi movement, as well as acknowledging the flowers as the only object can be thrown by the activists remarks the harmless feature of the Gezi activists. In short, political humor provided a way of responding to misinformation on media and misrepresentations of protestors in non-violent ways. Gezi activists used this parody as a way to express their problems by exaggerating certain claims to bring out their inconsistencies. Political satire as a final point of the framing function of social media during Gezi can suggest that “because humor relies on group norms, knowledge, practices, and problems, it provides a way to deal with problematic issues within the group, to generate unique identities and to create group identity and solidarity” (Baym