After the emergence of social media and gaining a solid place in our personal life, we experienced the process of gaining a place in public life. The Arab Spring, the Cambridge Analytics case and similar events have shown us all that these platforms have a bigger impact than thought.
So, can we, who use these platforms, be considered members of the press? Or should we count? If we can be considered a member of the press, can we freely report every public incident we see around us?
The definition of the freedom of the press is common and I think it is still a suitable definition today. But I cannot say the same for the definition of the press. The effectiveness and use of the media organs they mentioned decreased. Social media was added alongside others as a new press, horn eared. The press definition, which is widely accepted in the world, urgently needs to be updated and transformed into a form that includes social media.
Social Media and Social Events
We were presented with an idealized media reflection of every important social event up to now. These kinds of iconic visuals take place in our social memory and remind themselves at various times even though we are not aware of it. To give a few examples from Turkey; The court image of Deniz Gezmiş and his friends, the image of Adnan Menderes before his execution, a few images that were engraved in our memory during the Gezi events, the shopkeepers who threw cash registers during the Ecevit period.
I underlined a few words in particular because more than one visual image was engraved in our memory in the social events that took place in the period when social media started to stand out. Everything that settled in the social memory in previous periods was served material. When social media users evolved into independent news sources, iconic moments from more than one point of view emerged. It would not be wrong to think that social media facilitates social organization, but the administrations do not look very favorably on this issue. Iconic moments we come across can ignite a spark and make the invisible visible. The recent George Floyd incident is a good example. We all witnessed the last moments of George Floyd inevitably. Afterwards, we watched the growth of the great social movement that was triggered in the USA on social media, and provided support from thousands of kilometers away. Like everything else in the digital world, a community in direct opposition to the view we support can just as quickly gather and start a social movement.
Could the George Floyd incident and many similar injustices have arisen without individual journalists, ie social media users?
Say what? Does the press definition need to be updated? Should social media be officially considered a media outlet? I would like to think about it.