S YASAL LET M KAMPANYALARINDA SOSYAL MEDYANIN KULLANIMI (12 HAZ RAN 2011 SE MLER “twitter” RNE )

The rapid advances in communications and information technologies have been altering the old structures and habits in a radical way. One of the leading structures within this transformation process is the media and its political practices. Media as a factor inluencing politics and/or political orientations has been a dominant subject of debate within media studies. The formats of political action by political actors has been going through a transformation on both formal and informal contexts in accordance with contemporary conditions. This transformation has become more meaningful especially with the advances in information technologies in the past two decades. Along with the transmission of political messages to the public via classical propaganda techniques and conventional media means, a new era of “digital propaganda and online politics” as a new trend and course has come to existence. The fact that Barack Obama has won the 2008 Presidency elections in the USA by efficient and successful use of social media strategy has put forward social media as a necessary subject of political communication. In the light of these realities, the aim of this study is to make a research on the use of social media by Turkish politicians. The axis of this study is the general elections in Turkey held in 12 June 2011 and, by taking the Twitter accounts of the political leaders of parties which entered the Turkish National Assembly into consideration, content analysis method has been applied.