Over the last decade, social media platforms have become the leading communication tools for activists and protesters all over the world. Understanding protesters’ motivations and reasons for using social media is a challenging issue for researchers. In this article, we analyzed the use of Twitter during the anti-governmental protests in Istanbul that was launched in May 2013. We examined 13,794 tweets posted to the #direngeziparki hashtag over a 6-day period. Based on the results of a qualitative content coding of the tweets, we found that the Twitter platform was widely used to mobilize protesters, share information about the events, and express opinions about the policing of the protests. We argue that social media can help keep protests peaceful by preventing vandalism, informing the protesters about extremist or violent groups participating in the protests, and can help them to avoid engaging in violent acts against police forces.

在过去的十年中，社交媒体平台已成为全世界激进主义者和抗议者的主要交流工具。对于研究人员来说，了解抗议者的动机和使用社交媒体的原因是一个具有挑战性的问题。在本文中，我们分析了2013年5月在伊斯坦布尔发起的反政府抗议活动期间Twitter的使用情况。我们在6天的时间内检查了在#direngeziparki主题标签上发布的13,794条推文。根据对推文进行定性内容编码的结果，我们发现Twitter平台被广泛用于动员示威者，共享事件信息并表达对抗议活动进行治安的意见。我们认为社交媒体可以通过防止故意破坏行为来帮助使抗议活动保持和平，