Özet:

Political communication is not one of the communication activities that are needed merely during an election period, but a conception requiring continuity. Just as the businesses in a market have to differentiate in order to sell their products, so too the parties in political competition have to put forth the differences that make them superior in order to influence their electorate. Therefore, candidates should employ the political communication techniques for the purpose of being in interaction with their electorate, introducing themselves, creating a difference between the rivals and themselves, and particularly creating successful candidate images to win the elections. Today the Internet has transformed the world to a global village by linking all formations with each other. When compared with traditional media, new media provides an opportunity to reach masses in a shorter period of time. With this opportunity, the internet has changed the habits in societies in many ways in such as entertainment, communications and business methods. Along with the concept of Web 2.0, internet is used extensively by political parties as a political communication tool especially during election campaigns. Social media acts as an important mediator that political parties meet with voters. This study aims to examine how social media practices are used in political communication. Web 2.0 is described as the most common applications of new communications tools. The thesis which deals with the use of social media in political communication process; accordingly the concept of political communication was examined in the context of innovations about social media, how social media is used by politicians who nominated for the 2014 Presidential Election of Turkey. Therefore, being the most common application of new means of communication defined as Web 2.0, the use of social media in political communication is the focus of this study. In this sense, the concept of political communication with regard to the innovations brought about by social media and how social media was utilized by the political figures nominated for the 2014 Presidential Elections have been analyzed.  

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