DOI: 10.4018/IJPADA.2018010105
International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age
Volume 5 • Issue 1 • January-March 2018
Copyright©2018,IGIGlobal.CopyingordistributinginprintorelectronicformswithoutwrittenpermissionofIGIGlobalisprohibited.
82
Political Discourse Strategies Used in
Twitter during Gezi Park Protests:
A Comparison of Two Rival
Political Parties in Turkey
Nilay Yavuz, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey Naci Karkın, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey
İsmet Parlak, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey Özlem Özdeşim Subay, Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey
ABSTRACT Alongwiththegrowinguseoftwitterasatoolofpoliticalinteraction,recently,therehasalsobeen anattentionintheacademiatounderstandandexplainhowandwhypoliticiansusetwitter,and whatitsimpactonthepoliticaloutcomesare.Ontheotherhand,therehasbeenlittleanalysisabout thecontentofthetweetsthatpoliticiansfromdifferentpartiespostedduringmajorpoliticalevents. Accordingly,thisstudyaimstoinvestigatethediscoursestrategiesthatthetop-levelpoliticiansof thepartyinpowerandofthemainoppositionpartyinTurkeyusedintheirtweetsduringGeziPark eventsinthesummerof2013.Findingsfromahand-codedcontentanalysisbasedonVanDijk’s framework(2006)indicatethatwhilethemostfrequentlyusedstrategywasactordescriptionsand categorizationforbothparties’politicians,burdenstrategyandlexicalization/metaphorstrategy wereusedsignificantlymorebythemainoppositionpartypoliticianscomparedtothepoliticians ofthepartyinpower. KeywoRDS
Content Analysis, Discourse Analysis, Political Communication, Political Polarization, Political Use of Twitter, Social Media, Social Uprisings, Van Dijk
1. INTRoDUCTIoN Asgovernmentsseektoincreasetransparency,accountability,responsivenessofpublicinstitutions, andimprovegovernment-citizeninteraction,socialmediatechnologieshavebeenincreasinglyutilized inthepoliticalandadministrativearenasasinnovativetools.Socialmediatools,comprisingasetof Web2.0technologiessuchassocialnetworkingapplications,microbloggingandwikis,opensnew communicationandparticipationchannelsforimprovedpublicserviceandengagement(Oliveira& Welch,2013;Kaplan&Haenlein,2010). Amongothers,Twitter,launchedinJuly2006asafreewebsitethatenablessocialnetworking throughshortmessages,offersseveraladvantagestotheindividualusersandgovernmentagencies.
International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age
Volume 5 • Issue 1 • January-March 2018
83 Servingasamicrobloggingsiteproviding140-characterlongpostingsknownastweets,people irrespectiveofanysegment(sex,age,socialstatusetc.)mayusetwitterregularlyindailylife(Shi, Rui&Whinston2014),forpurposesrangingfromhavingasocialpresence(Dunlap&Lowenthal 2009)toprofessionalmarketing(Rinaldo,Tapp&Laverie2011;Fischer&Reuber2011).Inaddition, twitteruseduringextraordinaryevents(i.e.naturalcatastrophes,crashes,civilwar,socialuprisings etc.)isremarkablyhighwithbroadvolumeandaffection(Oh,Agrawal&Rao2013)withthehelpof retweeting(Boyd,Golder&Lotan2010;Ahn&Park2015),ormarkinganypostedtopicasfavorite. Assuch,Twitterisconsideredtobeaplatformthatcanfacilitateanoticeableincreaseinsocial interaction(Fischer&Reuber2011). Asforefrontfiguresatlocal,nationalorsupranationallevels,politiciansalsobenefitfromthe developmentsinsocialmediatechnologies.Particularlytwittermayservewellforpoliticianand constituentinteractions,andhasbeenextensivelyusedinpoliticalcommunicationduringnational orlocalelectiontimes.Becausetwitterofferstheadvantageofsimplicityandconvenienceofrapid communicationtotheusers,itisparticularlyusefulforthepoliticianstodirectlycommunicatetheir ideastothelargerpublicduringelectioncampaignsormajorevents(Han&Kim,2009;Merry, 2012).Asaresult,twitterhasbeenincreasinglypreferredasamediumofpoliticalcommunication overtraditionalmediaorevenwebsitesandblogs(Entman2007;Lee2009;Grahametal.,2014). Alongwiththegrowinguseoftwitterasatoolofpoliticalinteraction,recently,therehasalsobeen anattentionintheacademiatounderstandandexplainhowandwhypoliticiansusetwitter,andwhat itsimpactonthepoliticaloutcomesare(Lassen,Brown&Riding,2010;Williams&Gulati,2010; Golbecketal.,2010).Inaddition,afewstudieshavefocusedonthecontentofthemessagesandthe languagebehaviorofthepoliticiansontwitter,suggestingcategoriestocharacterizethemainthemes ofthetweetssentregularly(Shapiroetal.2012;Sobaci&Karkin,2013;Toff&Kim,2013).Onthe otherhand,therehasbeenlittleanalysisaboutthelanguagethatpoliticiansfromdifferentpartiesuse ontwitterduringmajorpoliticalevents.Forexample,whilepolarizinglanguageisregularlyusedby politiciansinthetraditionalmediatoclearlyspecifypointsofdepartureoncertainissues,itisnotclear whetherthesamelanguagebehaviorispresentorreinforcedinsocialmediause,especiallyduring majorpoliticalorsocialevents(Shapiroetal.,2012).Polarizinglanguageisdefinedas“supporting languageforone’sselfversuspejorativelanguageforothers”(Shapiroetal.,2013,p.2). Accordingly,thisstudyisanattempttoshedsomelightonthequestionofhowpoliticians communicatethroughTwitterduringextraordinaryevents.Particularly,itaimstoanalyzethe discoursestrategiesthattoppoliticalpartyexecutivesofthepartyinpower(JusticeandDevelopment Party-JDP)andofthemainoppositionparty(RepublicanPeople’sParty-RPP)inTurkeyusedin theirtweetsduringGeziParkeventsinthesummerof2013.Weexaminethreeresearchquestions: Whattypesofrecurringspeechpatternscanbeidentifiedfromthepoliticians’discourseinTwitter duringGeziParkevents?Whatdotheyrevealaboutthediscoursestrategiesusedbythepoliticians inTwitter?Dothesediscoursestrategiesdifferbetweenthepoliticiansoftherivalparties? UtilizingVanDijk’s(2004)discourseanalysiscategories,weexaminethetweetssentbythetop politiciansoftwopoliticalpartiesbetweenMay30-June30,2013tooutlinetherecurringspeech patternsandtoidentifyhowtheyestablishus–otherscontradictionbyemployingcertaindiscourse structuresintheirspeech.Weexpectthatthecontentofthetweetswillpresenthowwe-other contradictionisconstructedinthisframeworkandtheotherismarginalizedinordertolegitimize theirownperspectiveandgainthesupportofthepublicatlargeduringtheevent. Thepaperisorganizedasfollows.Wefirstpresentareviewoftheliteratureconcerningsocial mediauseinpoliticsanditsoutcomes.WethenprovideanoverviewoftheGeziParkeventsthattook placeinthesummerof2013inTurkeyandsummarizerelatedpoliticalarguments.Itisfollowedby thedescriptionofcriticaldiscourseanalysisanditsrelevanceforourstudy,alongwiththeanalytical categoriesusedtogrouppoliticians’tweets.Next,wedescribethedataandthemethodsusedinthe paper.Finally,wepresentourresultsanddiscusstheimplicationsofthestudy.
13 more pages are available in the full version of this
document, which may be purchased using the "Add to Cart"
button on the product's webpage:
www.igi-global.com/article/political-discourse-strategies-used-in-twitter-during-gezi-park-protests/190615?camid=4v1
This title is available in InfoSci-Civic Engagement,
Sustainable Planning, and Crisis Response eJournal
Collection, InfoSci-Management Science and Organizational
Research eJournal Collection, InfoSci-Journals. Recommend
this product to your librarian:
www.igi-global.com/e-resources/library-recommendation/?id=165
Related Content
Embodiment and Gameplay in Networked Publics
Karin Hansson and Love Ekenberg (2017). International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age (pp. 43-55).
www.igi-global.com/article/embodiment-and-gameplay-in-networked-publics/175850?camid=4v1a
An Innovative Government Architecture with Semantic Technology
Wout Hofman (2016). International Journal of Public Administration in the Digital Age (pp. 47-65).
www.igi-global.com/article/an-innovative-government-architecture-with-semantic-technology/146807?camid=4v1a
Social Media and e-Participation: Challenges of Social Media for Managing Public Projects
Sebastian Vogt, Bernadette Förster and Rüdiger Kabst (2015). Public Affairs and Administration: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1761-1782).
“Problems and Suggestions”: Non-Governmental Organisations of Sexual Orientation Minorities in the Context of Turkey and United Kingdom
Erhan Aydin (2017). Handbook of Research on Managerial Solutions in Non-Profit Organizations (pp. 232-252).
