A Twitter-Based Analysis Of Hashtag And Mention Actions As An İndicator Of Turkish General Elections’ Outcomes

Abstract

Sosyal medya; gerçek dünyadaki sosyal eğilimleri, siyasi katılım ve gösteriler gibi kolektif eylemleri tanımlamak için önemli ve geniş çaplı bir veri sunmaktadır. İnsanlar bu kanalları kullandıklarında, araştırmacılar tarafından kolayca ulaşılabilecek büyük miktarda dijital iz bırakmaktadırlar. Bu dijital iz, kolektif eylemleri gözlemleme ve ortaya çıkarma konusunda araştırmacılara eşsiz bir imkân sunmaktadır. Bu araştırma, günlük Twitter aktivitelerinin (tweet, retweet, mention), birçok çalışmada ele alındığı gibi, Türkiye seçim sonuçlarına ilişkin önemli bir gösterge olup olmadığını test etmeyi amaçlamıştır. Bunu test etmek için, Eom ve arkadaşları (2015) tarafından günlük tweet hacmine dayalı olarak değişkenlerin sırasını tahmin etmek için geliştirilen bir yöntem seçilerek uygulanmıştır. Partilerin ve adayların tahmini sıralamasında en uygun zaman aralığını bulmak için günlük tweet hacimlerindeki dalgalanmalar kullanılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda, elde edilen sonuçlardan bazılarının önceki çalışmalarla örtüştüğü görülmüştür. Bu çalışma sonucunda elde edilen günlük ilgi miktarı ile seçim sonuçları arasındaki korelasyon –seçim sonuçlarını doğrudan etkilemese de– Türkiye’de Twitter verilerinin bir gösterge olarak kullanılabileceğini göstermiştir.

Keywords

• Seçim,Politik Katılım,İlgi,Sosyal Medya,Türkiye,Siyasal İletişim

Project Number

A-2214

A Twitter-Based Analysis Of Hashtag And Mention Actions As An İndicator Of Turkish General Elections’ Outcomes

Abstract

Social media provides a large-scale data that have substantial prospective to define collective actions such as social trends, political participation and complex phenomena in real world. When people use these channels, they leave a huge amount of digital trace that can be easily reached by researchers. This digital trace bestows us a unique possibility to observe and reveal collective actions at unpreceded measures. In this research, we have aimed to test if the daily Twitter activities (tweet, retweet, mention) can serve as a significant indicator regarding Turkish election results, an argument already engaged in previous studies. We have concluded that some of our results overlap with previous studies. The correlation between the daily attention volume on acquired in this study and the election results –even though it does not directly impact the election results– shows Turkish Twitter data can be used as a proxy tool.

Keywords

• Election,Political Participation,Attention,Social Media,Turkey

Supporting Institution

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey

Project Number

A-2214

Thanks

I gratefully acknowledge the support of The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (2214-A).

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