Özet:

The developments in communication and information technologies in modern times have made it possible to create new platforms that enable individuals to share feelings, thoughts and information. The social media environment in which content production users are interactively performed has led to the rapid change of old structure and habits. From the leading structures of this transformation process, the media has become a factor that affects the political orientations. The forms of political action of political actors have changed in both formal and informal contexts according to the present conditions. Political messages transmitted through classic propaganda techniques and traditional media means have replaced the era of "digital propaganda and online politics" as a new trend. The focus of the research is to determine the impact of new media technologies on political attitudes and behaviors created in society. In this study, the use of social media in the framework of the election campaigns of the Justice and Development Party candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has the highest percentage of Twitter use among the candidates until the 24th of June 2018, Meral Akşener, who has the highest percentage of Twitter use, has been examined through the example of Twitter. Between May 5, 2018 and June 25, 2018 when the election results were announced, the tweet shared by Akşener and Erdoğan was subjected to a quantitative analysis in terms of functionality, type, content; the digital communication strategies and performance of the candidates were compared over graphic data.