Özet:

Social media tools have become an indispensable element of social life, the public and politics today. Political actors are widely using social media tools, especially during the election campaign periods, to inform the voter’s crowd, to establish simultaneous and bilateral communication and to create the public. This feature of social media has also brought new possibilities of use for political communication. From the traditional meetings, which are one of the first forms of political communication conducted during the political campaign, the social media meetings, which are separated from the spatial independent and mediated communication feature, provide an environment and possibility for the political institutions and individuals to communicate their political opinions with instant and mutual communication, eliminating the barriers between the broad public and the masses to a significant extent, to close up, to create the public, to sincerely answer the questions of individuals, to give clear answers and to establish a fast organizational network. This research aims to reveal the influence of social media meetings on political communication due to political participation through the issue of being a "new environment and a possibility". It is believed that the existing literature on political meetings is extremely insufficient, and the absence of the published work on social media meetings shows the original value of the work and this aspect of the work will make a significant contribution to the relevant literature. In the framework of the research, the 2019 Local Elections addressed the social media meetings organized via Facebook with the participation of Erzurum Metropolitan, Kocaeli Derince, Kocaeli Gulf, Kocaeli Metropolitan, Samsun Atakum, Samsun Metropolitan, Trabzon Metropolitan, Yalova Kaytazdere mayor candidates. In this regard, 8 social media meetings videos and 11 categories have been reviewed in a total of 3919 comments. The method of content analysis was used in the analysis of the data obtained. From the reviewed social media meetings and analyses, the social media meetings have come to the conclusion that they provide the necessary environment to influence a lot of voters with less effort and cost than the traditional meetings, that they give the opportunity to build close proximity with the candidate, that they have the opportunity to be in the same environment with the voters from different opinions, that they have the opportunity to express their opinion freely and to discuss each other, that they have the opportunity to evaluate the future feedback from the candidate and that they have the opportunity to develop their projects and promises before the election.

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