The political communication in 280 characters: The Twitter campaigns of the 31st of March 2019 for the Istanbul local elections

Election campaigns are the periods when the political communications most visible and is felt intensely. The political communication has been conceptualized and professionalized with modernity, even though it has existed as a necessity, along with sociality, since people adopted a sedentary life. The political campaigning, that is one of the sub-fields of the political communication, is a unique period that is carried out for a limited period and on a regular basis despite the continuity of the political communication. The election campaigns are amongst the most common types of the political campaign. During the election periods, the sum of the communication activities carried out by the political actor with the intention of gaining the upper hand over his opponents and to convince the electors constitute the elements of the election campaign. In this sense, it can be said that the election campaign is a periodic communication activity that takes place publicly, between the voters and the candidates in real life as well as through the media. The same description can be generalized for the political communication by subtracting the term "periodic". The election campaigns are events that are carried out until the election day that play an essential part in the candidate's victory or defeat in the election. These are the periods when the candidates and their teams -who work on behalf of the candidates - endeavour all the opportunities in the field to achieve a favourable outcome. Politicians prefer to cover every aspect since each one could contribute to achieving a favourable outcome at the end of the election periods. Over the past few years, with the growth of social media, social media platforms covered in electoral campaigns. Especially Twitter, in this sense, has started to be seen as a political communication arena by experts. Especially Twitter, in this sense, has recognized to be seen as a political communication arena by experts. In 2008, Barack Obama, who was one of the candidates and was elected to be the 44th president of the USA, used Twitter successfully as an electoral campaign element and this aspect of using social media is recognized as the first example of the addition of social media, specifically Twitter, to the political communication field. In the process extending to the present day, Twitter continued to be in the centre of public and political communication discussions. In the process following 2008, the relation between social media platforms and election results, especially Twitter's, became to addressed more in the current and academic discussions. In this context, it has been suggested in the context of technological determinism that there are elections which are claimed to have been won on Twitter. In the scope of this study, from the point of view of The Theory of Social Construction of Technology (The Social Construction of Technology), how Twitter used in the election campaign, its function and its relationship with the election results are discussed. In this study, the Election of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) and Mayor within the scope of the General Election of Local Administrations held in Turkey on March 31, 2019, was discussed. Although 32 candidates competed in this election, known as the March 31 Istanbul Election, two of the candidates, Candidate of CHP, Ekrem Imamoglu and Candidate of AKP, Binali Yildirim, received about 98 per cent of the valid votes, so in this research, the other candidates were excluded, and these two candidates addressed. This election which went down as a rather important election for Turkish political history caused echoes on a national and international scales of a wide variety of aspects and ended with, according to the results of YSK, Imamoglu's close victory against Yıldırım. However, the election, was decided to be renewed through an extraordinary appeal, was renewed on June 23, and the process was completed with the re-election of Imamoglu. In this election, despite the fact that Imamoglu has less recognition, a weaker political career than his rival or couldn't find coverage in traditional media during the campaign period, his victory caused comments to be made about he won the election thanks to social media. In this election, even though Imamoglu had less recognition, a weaker political career than his rival or couldn't find coverage in traditional media during the campaign period, his victory caused comments to be made about he won the election thanks to social media. This argument has gained strength because it is also compatible with the ongoing discussions between social media and election results on a global scale. Within the scope of the study, the election campaigns conducted by Imamoğlu and Yıldırım on Twitter for the March 31 election were examined. In this context, the methods of using Twitter of both candidates have been determined and evaluated mutually, and the relationship between the election results and Twitter campaigns has been tried to be evaluated. Within the framework of the study, tweets produced by both candidates from the date of launching the election campaign until 18:00 on March 30, 2019, the date set by the YSK as the end of election propaganda, were collected. In this context, 821 tweets of Imamoğlu and one thousand 184 tweets of Yıldırım were collected and a total of (N=2005) tweets were examined. In this context, the study aims to reveal the methods of using Twitter by politicians and to examine its relationship with election results by subjecting it to a comparative evaluation. In this way, the rhetoric that Imamoglu won the election on Twitter will be scientifically tested. The tweet contents, which are the data produced by the candidates digitally, were collected using the Twitter API through software developed with the Python programming language. When collecting data, "the Tweepy" library developed for "Python" was used to collect data from Twitter. Although digital theories and methods have started to develop in social science studies, it has become inevitable that digital methods and tools will be used and treated as a field in political communication studies. This, in turn, creates the need for social science employees to gain new abilities such as the use of new APIs and the ability to program. The study aimed to produce information in this field and explained its processes in detail. According to the findings reached within the scope of the study, Twitter has strengthened its position towards becoming the social media of political communication. Twitter hosts the public debate with sufficient inclusiveness. Yıldırım, one of the candidates, has used Twitter more successfully in terms of quantity and Imamoglu, the other candidate, has used Twitter more successfully in terms of quality. Both candidates used basic Twitter features such as hashtags, and interaction similarly and poorly and candidates' Twitter usage shows similar patterns. Imamoglu is more successful than Yıldırım in terms of supporting their content with visual elements and thus gaining popularity but Yıldırım has shown a more functional use of hashtags in terms of content distribution balance and district hashtags. Candidates use Twitter with traditional media habits, and they have not been able to fully incorporate Twitter into their electoral campaigns. According to these results and the theory, in this field study, it was assessed that Twitter does not have a game-changing effect on election results but has become a mandatory element of the election campaign. In this context, it is suggested that the comments that excluding the Twitter campaign may have the result of losing an election, that it must necessarily be present in campaigns, that its correct and effective use makes a difference, and that it alone has the effect of changing the election result are associated with technological determinism. The study, argues that an important phenomenon such as the election result should be considered in a broader econo-political and socio-political context, including the Twitter campaign, has revealed the relationship between Twitter and the election campaign in the context of the March 31 Istanbul Election. In addition, within the scope of the study, the fact that social media constantly makes the politician open to communication has been conceptualized as "Always On- air Because On-line - (AOBO)". The study says that the election campaign is also more than 280 characters. Keywords: Political Communication, Political Campaign, Election Campaign, Twitter, Ekrem İmamoğlu, Binali Yıldırım.