The use of social media in schools as a communication tool within the frame of school culture

As a social institution, schools create a unique school culture with their characteristics, shared values and beliefs. One of the factors that affect school culture is the communication it establishes with its environment. Schools carry out corporate communication, which has an important place in their culture, with different tools. The aim of this research is to determine the use of social media tools as a communication tool in primary and secondary education institutions within the framework of school culture. In the research, the use of social media tools in educational institutions was revealed in line with the opinions of school administrators, teachers and school social media administrators. In addition, the shares of the schools in the study group on Instagram, one of the social media tools, were examined. The research was conducted with the case study approach in accordance with the qualitative research methodology. The study group of the research was determined by the maximum diversity sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods. The interviews were conducted with the participation of 18 school administrators, 18 teachers and 18 social media administrators working in different levels and places with different socioeconomic levels in Istanbul. The data of the research were collected with the help of semi-structured interview forms and Social Media Account Analysis Form and analyzed with descriptive analysis and content analysis approaches. As a result of the research, it has been revealed that Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Youtube applications are used in schools. Participants stated that social media accounts in schools are usually managed by commissions and efforts are made to establish two-way communication with their followers on their school's social media accounts. The participants stated that they use their social media accounts to share information, news and promote the school, that social media accounts provide ease of communication to their schools and that social media should be used effectively in order for schools to communicate with the society through social media. In the research, it has been revealed that schools use Instagram, one of the social media tools, more effectively and they mostly share photos in their Instagram posts. The types of content shared by schools on their Instagram accounts included announcements, promotions, news, events, thanks, awards, celebrations, corporate visits, condolences and commemorations. It has been revealed that they mostly use text in their post texts and support their posts with emojis. In addition, it has been concluded that the majority of schools do not respond to the comments made by their followers on social media posts, and therefore they use their social media accounts more one-way.