Hashtag Savaşları, Çevrimiçi Siyasi Kutuplaşma ve Yerel Seçimler

Seçimler, çevrimiçi siyasal iletişim, özellikle de fragmantasyon, yankı odası ve kutuplaşma çalışmaları için uygun ve verimlidir. Ne var ki, çoğunlukla genel seçimlerden daha az politikleşmiş olduklarından, yerel seçimler, gözden kaçmıştır. Bu çalışmada amacımız, yerel seçimlerin de hayli politikleştiği bir ülkeye odaklanarak, yerel seçimler vesilesiyle oluşan çevrimiçi siyasi kutuplaşmayı incelemektir. Dil kullanımının yanı sıra hashtag, anahtar kelime ve coğrafi analize dayanan yöntemimizi takip ederek, 2019 Türkiye Yerel Seçimleri civarında iki aşamada toplam yaklaşık 710 bin adet tweet çekerek coğrafi bilgi de içeren 5220 tweet’lik iki adet veri kümesi oluşturduk. İptal edilip tekrar edilen ve bir bakıma ülkenin siyasi tarihinde bir kırılma noktası haline gelen İstanbul Seçimleri’ne odaklanarak, ilk olarak, yerel seçimlerin de siyasi kutuplaşmaya ciddi bir katkı yapabildiğini tartışıyoruz. İkinci olarak, coğrafi analiz gerçekleştirerek, bir bölgedeki yerel seçimlerden kaynaklanan siyasi kutuplaşmanın tüm ülkeye yayılabildiğini gösteriyoruz. Sonuçlarımız, çevrimiçi siyasi kutuplaşma çalışmalarına katkı yapmaktadır.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Sosyal Medya, Fragmantasyon, Yankı Odası, Polarizasyon, Seçimler

Hashtag Wars, Online Political Polarization and Mayoral Elections

Elections are convenient and fruitful for studying online political communications, in particular fragmentation, echo chambers and polarization. However, because they are usually less politicized than the general elections, mayoral elections have been mostly overlooked. In this work, focusing on a country in which mayoral elections are highly politicized, our aim is to examine online political polarization due to mayoral elections. Following our method based on language use and also hashtag, keyword and geographical analyses, we retrieved approximately a total number of 710 thousand tweets in two stages with specific hashtags around 2019 mayoral elections in Turkey and created two datasets of 5220 tweets in total which include geographical information. Focusing on the elections in Istanbul which was canceled, re-run and eventually turned to be a breaking point in the political history of the country, we first argue that mayoral elections can significantly contribute to the political polarization too. Secondly, performing geographical analysis, we show that the polarization due to the elections in one region can spreads to the entire nation. Our results make a contribution to studies in online political polarization.

Keywords:

Social Media, Fragmentation, Echo Chamber, Polarization, Elections,

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