Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Netnocon 23, Manchester, İngiltere, 26 - 28 Temmuz 2023, ss.64-65
Dr. Burcu ASENA-SALMAN
TED University, Ankara, Turkey
burcu.asena@tedu.edu.tr
A Netnographic Survey of Turkish Twitter After the Earthquakes of February 2023
Extended Abstract
On February 6th, 2023, Syria and 11 cities in southeastern Türkiye were stroke by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake for 103 seconds. A few hours later another earthquake ruined a major part of dwellings and killed more than 44.000 people (according to February 28th, 2023 data). The rescue process was conducted through Twitter by NGOs in the first 48 hours and yet in the meanwhile Twitter also became the first social media platform forcefully band lowered almost for an entire day by the state administration that interrupted the voluntary labor deliberately. Facing blowback from the public, government officials reversed their action and "re-opened" Twitter and only then civil help could continue. Civic cooperative work was regarded to disrepute the state apparatus by revealing scandals in operations of different pro-government municipalities and government-run civil foundations such as Turkish Red Cross or Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency.
Twitter was a government-led, non-democratic social media ground 2013 onwards, when Gezi Park protests organized through social media and government thus built an army of trolls whose weapons was lynching (Bulut & Yörük, 2017, 4094, 4108). As a native researcher who was also affected, my aim was to see how above noted scandals will transform the polarized Twitter culture, especially when compared with most parts of the world where Twitter is associated with help in times of crisis and which themes will form the headlines. Therefore from the eighth day of the earthquake onwards, each day I kept the record of and classified most popular themes on Twitter like in an archaeological surface survey to trace a pattern of cultural thought. Scandals raised from different fields such as aseismic construction, pro-government municipalities, government-run civil foundations; vulgar press releases of authorities; political propaganda and disinformation for May 14th, 2023 elections; universities moving online; celebrities; deliberately muted opponent TV channels or websites and trolls, as government's private social media soldiers' profiles were collected, as well as new symbols constructing and reconstructing public connotations. The systematic post-earthquake survey in Twitter continued for 2 months and needed to be finalized on April 3, 2023 when neither the earthquake, nor its consequences were in the spotlights anymore rather frantic trolling was at its peak, with even higher polarization to provide People's Alliance to "reign" in the upcoming elections, whose leader is Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
References
Bulut, E., & Yörük, E. (2015). Digital Populism: Trolls and Political Polarization of Twitter in Turkey. International Journal of Communication, 11, 4093-4117. https://doi.org/1932–8036/20170005