Özet:

This article examines how NGOs that represent social groups in Turkey symbolically construct a national identity through the representation of national days in Instagram. National signs and symbols function to communicate national identity to its members and create a sense of belonging. Visual images also appear as traces of social, economic, and political processes in which identities are shaped. Therefore, this paper argues that analyzing Instagram posts by non-government organizations (NGOs) can provide insight into how national identity is constructed through national days. A thematic analysis approach, supported by a grounded coding process, was used to explore how NGOs portray national days. For this qualitative thematic analysis, a coding frame was used to conduct cluster analyses of the symbols by using QDA Miner software to understand how they relate to another. The findings indicate that the celebration messages are mostly visualized through certain national symbols in social media and these differ in three main national identity discourses parallel to NGO’s political and ideological positions or social groups and values they represents.

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