Özet:

Astrology has gained importance as a field dating back centuries and examining the effects of planetary movements on human destiny. In this sense, the field of astrology, which has developed over the centuries, has become an interest of large masses, especially with the increasing effect of mass communication technologies. While the origin of astrology is based on the findings of the Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, it has become an important field of study by developing different interpretations and progression over time. Although this field of study has become popular by interpretations of the twelve zodiac signs in today’s world, it focuses not only on the interpretation of daily life through the signs, but also on the effects of star and planetary movements on human life. In other words, astrology plays an important role as an interesting field in satifying human curiosity about life. Along with social media platforms, the field of astrology stands out as one of the popular interests followed by large masses. In this context, it is observed that social media platforms that include astrology content are highly interesting and followed by the audience. In this sense, while following the astrology pages, the questions come to the fore as to what kind of need the audience seeks and to what extent they can reach sufficient information about their needs. Therefore, based on answering the questions put forward, the theoretical framework of the research is the uses and gratifications approach, which is one of the media approaches that gained importance in the 1960s. Uses and gratifications studies are examined in two separate processes classical and modern periods. While the studies conducted in New York by the Bureau of Applied Social Research in the 1940s express the classical period, the results revealed in the 1960s point to the modern period studies. The uses and gratifications approach active media users, while attributing power to the buyer to define his or her behavior. The uses and gratifications approach basically aims to explain the media selection of the audience and the link to satisfying their needs as a result of these choices. In this sense, gratifications refer to media types and content types that are attractive to and connect with buyers. The approach, which argues that audiences try to satisfy their complex needs and aim to achieve satisfaction, is basically "What do people do with media?" seeks an answer to the question. The uses and gratifications approach, which assumes that the audience can be active, that the use of media is based on certain purposes, that media consumption can satisfy certain needs, that people have sufficient awareness of the use of media, that the origin of the gratifications is in the media content and the social context, the psychological and social environment of individuals, communication needs and motives, media system, attitudes and expectations towards the media, communication behavior and these behavioral outputs are formed around the basic components. On the other hand, this study considers astrology as a field of study, not a field of science. Therefore, it adopts the distant and controversial relationship of the field of astrology with science. Although the field of astrology is controversial as a scientific field of study, it reaches millions of viewers, especially through mass media, and attracts the great attention of the audience. Therefore, astrology studies, which are widely followed in both mainstream mass media and social media environments and are thought to affect the audience, are within the framework of the media. The research was limited to the use of Instagram, one of the social media tools. The first reason for choosing Instagram as a working area is that Instagram stands out as one of the most popular social media tools. The second is that it reflects private life more than Twitter, which is one of the other popular social media platforms, and has a younger and more active user base than Facebook. Examined instagram accounts; Merve Çubuktepe (mervecubuktepe), Zeynep Turan (twitburcc), Aygül Aydın (astromatic), Çağla Yüksel (astrologcaglaa), Erkan hero (erkankahraman) and Devrim Dayıoğlu (devrimdayioğlu). Data were analyzed in 24-hour cycles between July 1, 2022 and August 1, 2022. Based on the theoretical framework of the study, six accounts with astrology content were determined on Instagram, which is one of the social media environments, and an analysis was carried out for the followers of the accounts using the digital ethnography method. While it is concluded that the followers of the determined accounts act intensively according to the motivations of escaping from reality and personal integration; It was observed that he followed the relevant accounts in order to close the knowledge gap on astrology and to socialize.

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