The Impact of Social Media on Social Movements: The Case of Anti-Consumption

Abstract

The primary objective of this chapter is to analyze the support of social media for social movements within the context of the anti-consumption movement. Social media have proved to be strategic for initiating, organizing and communicating social movements. The anti-consumption movement is a trend of the postmodernism era that has not yet reached a large following. A secondary aim of this chapter is to analyze the similarities and differences in the support of social media for the anti-consumption movement between one developed and one emerging market. To achieve this goal, a content analysis was employed to analyze Facebook accounts of anti-consumption online communities in the USA and Turkey. The findings show that social media can be the right medium to increase coverage of social movements in society. Additionally, the online institutionalization and decentralized organization of the online community as well as stable social media sharing help support non-radical social movements like anti-consumption.