Postmodern Status of New Social Movements: A Research on Yellow Vests
Nil Çokluk CömertTechnological, cultural, political and economic developments with social change have transformed the form of social relations and brought new structures and conceptualizations. In this study, postmodern movements, which have been changed by technological innovations, are examined specific to Yellow Vests. Organizational forms, structures, agendas and horizontal communication of social movements that transform by the new communication technologies are studied. The study focused on the conversion of social movements by asserting the postmodern aspects of the Yellow Vests, which started in France and globalized in a short time via new technologies. In this context, to compose a general perspective on Yellow Vests, the news in the media is examined. Moreover, by the content analysis with Orange3, the tweets of “@_Gilets_Jaunes_” are assessed so as to understand the agenda and how Yellow Vests shapes the movement by the new communication technologies. Emotions and the general subjects of tweets are examined. This study aims to demonstrate how the movement emerged from traditional to postmodern with a descriptive approach by focusing on prominent themes and the organizational form of the Yellow Vests. According to the findings, it is possible to indicate that the Yellow Vests used new communication utilities to mobilize the movement as well as to convey their demands..
The social change experienced in the historical process has led to radical transformations in the structure of social movements. New communication technologies, an important consequence of this change, have turned social movements into a postmodern movement. These technologies having brought a new character to the social movements completely transformed the organization and mobilization of movements. These movements, different from traditional movements, have provided the opportunity to support the identity of the movement through new communication technologies that enable participation and interaction. This study including the social movement literature in general puts forward the themes, the content of discourse and the emotion analysis of the Yellow Vests movement that are highlighted in the new communication environments. In other words, how the Yellow Vests are organized through social networks, the issues they discuss and how they are mobilized are evaluated in terms of postmodern social movements.
This study discusses the social movements, the conditions in which they are formed and the transformations they undergo by focusing on social change and postmodern movements. It also elaborates on changing leader structure of the movements and how the new communication technologies and identity affect the participation in the movement. In general, social movement can be defined as people’s opposition who join around a demand against any disorder that exists in the social life. These movements can lead to more awareness of the problems in the social life in the historical process. Movements can arise with broader demands when necessary and combine with other movements in the social sphere to find opportunities to expand to large areas. The development and rapid expansion of new communication technologies has enabled these movements to spread to a wider area.
The Yellow Vest Movement, which aims to gather people who are excluded from the system, has become a global movement thanks to new communication technologies. The petition of The Yellow Vest Movement to reduce taxes on the change.org was signed by more than 850,000 people (Tapiero, 2018). The movement that starts online and hosts many people from different groups has been transformed into street actions organized in online environments as a result of non-fulfilment of their demands. The non-leader structure, the lack of belonging to a particular political ideology, the collective identity created by using the yellow vest symbol, the horizontal communication and its spreading to a global space make it possible to characterize The Yellow Vests Movement which is organized by new communication technologies as a postmodern movement.
This study aims to reveal the change in the structures of social movements, which is a shift from working class-based labour movements to postmodern social movements, through social changes and new communication technologies on the basis of the Yellow Vests example. The study is unique because it evaluates The Yellow Vests Movement as a postmodern social movement which is a current and new issue. It analyses the Gilets Jaunes (@_Gilets_Jaunes_) Twitter account that is page of Yellow Vest via data mining technique and reveals how the movement is organized and how people communicated through the new communication technologies.
The study which examined 95 tweets that were shared on Twitter page of the Yellow Vests Movement between 17 November 2018 and 31 December 2018 with the help of the Orange3 software reveals a descriptive analysis. In addition, the news about the movement were analysed in order to understand the background and structure of the Yellow Vests Movement better.
The study has found that Yellow Vests Movement’s @_Gilets_Jaunes_ Twitter account has frequently used the words “continued”, “17 November 2018”, “support”, “blockage”, “movement” and their tweets contain negative emotions mostly. It is possible to state that the movement organizes street actions through new communication technologies and conveys its demands through this medium. The study concludes that new communication technologies have an impact on the way of organizing, the action and the discourse of social movements. Although traditional methods of participation in social movements continue in part, it can be concluded that movements have reached a global dimension through the use social networks. From this point of view, it can be concluded that the movements have become postmodern as a result of social change by reaching the global dimensions with technological development.
