Abstract:

Today, Twitter has become one of the social media platforms where individuals discuss, express their opinions on many topics from the economy to politics, from daily life to art. Along with web 2.0 technologies, it has a microblogging feature that can create a specific domain, especially due to current news sharing and dissemination. In this context, this study carries out research on the effectiveness, possibilities and limitations in a campaign organized on Twitter today on the concept of public sphere, examined by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas at a historical time when the Internet did not exist as a new communication. In the study, it has been discussed how Twitter can be evaluated in mobilizing public opinion and influencing decision-makers through a case study related to donation campaigns carried out on social media for children with SMA. In this context, 692 of the 35.308 tweets collected under two different tags for the campaign for children with SMA on Twitter between 3 – 6 January 2021, obtained by systematic sampling, were subjected to content analysis. Based on the coding scheme obtained from two different studies with a mixed-method, a code list was created, and with the study in which the results encoded over 6 different code categories were interpreted, it was concluded that Twitter was an environment for individuals to express their opinions in the public sphere, but it has been concluded that this publicity is limited in influencing decision-makers.

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