Türkiye'de Gençlerin Siyasal Katılımı: Motivasyon Olarak Sosyal Medya

Literatür temelde gençlerin siyasete karşı ilgisiz olduklarının; siyasetle ilgilenmediklerinin ve sadece yaşam tarzlarını doğrudan etkileyen konulara dikkat ettiklerinin altını çizmektedir. Ancak bu varsayımlar, siyasal katılımın değişen örüntülerini/ şekillerini ve gençlerin bu süre zarfında ulaşabilecekleri kanalların karmaşıklığını yanlış değerlendirmektedir. İnternet, maliyeti düşürerek ve dünyanın her yerinden bilgiye erişim olanağı sağlayarak siyasi katılım yelpazesini genişletmiş ve yeni siyasi katılım yolları açmaktadır. Gençler, siyasi partilere üye olmayabilirler, ancak sivil toplum gruplarında aktiftirler; genel seçimlere gitmeyebilirler ancak belirli konular hakkında görüş bildirmektedirler. Bu durum, gençlerin siyasi olarak aktif olmaları ve harekete geçmeleri için yeni fırsatlar sunmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın temel amacı internetin ve sosyal medyanın Türkiye'deki gençlerin siyasal katılımı üzerindeki etkisini görmek ve sosyal medyayı siyasi partilerin ve sivil toplum örgütlerinin genç üyeleri arasında siyasi katılım için bir motivasyon olarak analiz etmektir. Çalışmanın argümanı sosyal medyanın, gençleri, siyasi partilerin faaliyetlerini görerek ve okuyarak siyasi partilere katılmaya motive ederken; sivil/ kamusal görevleri teşvik ederek gençleri sivil topluma katılmaya motive ettiği yönündedir. Bu çalışma bu varsayımı değerlendirmek için AK Parti, CHP ve GoFor'dan (Gençlik Örgütleri Forumu) 30 katılımcı (her birinden 10 katılımcı) ile mülakat yapılmıştır. Argümanımızı ölçmek için 14 sorudan oluşan yarı yapılandırılmış bir görüşme formu oluşturduk ve sorularımız AK Parti ve CHP gençlik kolları yönetici üyelerine ve Türkiye'deki sivil toplumun temsilcisi olarak GoFor'un (Gençlik Örgütleri Forumu) yönetici üyelerine sorduk. Mülakatların içeriği MaxQda yazılımı ile analiz edilmiştir. Araştırmanın bulguları, Türkiye’de siyasi meselelere önem veren ve siyaset/ siyasi gelişmeler hakkında okuyan, araştıran ve bunlarla ilgilenen gençlerin çevrimiçi arenada da siyasi meseleleri okuyan, araştıran ve bunlara katılanlar olduğunu göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Sosyal Medya, gençlerin siyasi katılımı, dijital çağ, Türkiye'de gençlik, sivil toplum

Political Participation of Youth in Turkey: Social Media as a Motivation

The literature mainly underlines that young people are apathetic; they are not interested in politics, and they only give attention to the matters that directly affect their lifestyles. However, these assumptions miscalculate the changing patterns of political participation and the complexity of the channels that young people can reach in this time. The Internet has opened new ways of political participation by lowering the cost and providing the opportunity to access information from all over the world, enhancing the spectrum of political participation. Young people may not be members of political parties, but they are active in civil society groups; they may not hold general elections, but they do comment on certain issues. This situation provides new opportunities for young people to become politically active and mobilized. The main aim of this study is to see the impact of internet/ social media on the political participation of youth in Turkey, and to analyze the social media as a motivation of political participation among the young members of political parties and civil society. The main argument is that social media motivates young people to participate in political parties by seeing and reading about their activities while motivating young people to participate in civil society by encouraging civic duties. To investigate this, we made an interview with 30 executive members (10 from each organization), from AK Party, CHP, and GoFor (Gençlik Örgütleri Forumu) and analyze the content via MaxQda software. The finding of the study is that young people who tend to care about political issues and the ones who read, research, and become engaged in politics are also the ones reading, researching, and engaging in political issues in the online arena in Turkey.

Keywords:

social media, youth political participation, digital era, youth in Turkey, civil society,

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