Use of social media as a medium of political communication: Example of 24 June 2018 election of Presidential and general election

The dazzling developments in communication technologies today have caused some changes in every aspect of social life. The political phenomenon among these areas has taken its place among the prominent topics. Along with the developments in communication technologies, important changes are being made in the ways of political practice and in the conduct of political campaign activities. Especially, the innovations brought by social media tools that have started to develop along with Web 2.0 have been intensively used by political actors during political campaign periods. Social media tools that strengthen their place in the social life provide an environment where users can produce their own content and communicate without restriction of time and space. This situation attracts the attention of political actors and the political actors actively use these tools in the political campaign process. Thus, in this study, a medium used heavily by political actors in Turkey that Twitter is discussed as a medium for political communication. In this study, which evaluates the use of social media in political communication through Twitter, the 6 candidates who participated in the Presidential elections held on June 24, 2018 were evaluated by using content analysis and how they benefited from Twitter. According to the findings of the study, it was determined that the political actors who participated in the presidential elections used Twitter to share information and to make candidate propaganda, and that these actors considered social media as an extension of traditional media organs throughout the campaign process. Political actors have not been able to adequately evaluate the bidirectional communication opportunity offered by Twitter, and have maintained one-way information sharing and monologous communication style rather than interacting with voters and have not included the voters in the campaign process. Keywords: Political Communication, New Media, Social Media, Twitter.