Examination of fan masses on Twitter in terms of parasocial interaction and omnipticon as an example of virtual community

With the development of technology and the introduction of the internet into our lives, social media has become a part of daily life by becoming widespread in all areas of our lives, unlike traditional mass media. Social media includes platforms where users interact in two ways by creating a profile, enabling individuals to communicate with each other, providing an interaction environment where they can criticize and comment on each other, and produce their own cultures on the one hand. In addition, social media platforms offer their users an omniptic space where everyone can spy on everyone. It is thought that these platforms contribute to the strengthening of the parasocial interaction, which expresses the one-sided relationship established between the individuals in the audience position and the media character, and to make this interaction continuous by transforming it into a relationship. In this context, it has been observed that anonymous fan masses gathered around one or more media characters on Twitter, one of the common social media platforms, form a digital community and use this social media intensively in line with their needs and purposes. The general purpose of this research; To determine the behavior patterns of anonymous fan accounts gathered around a certain media character or media content and to address this issue within the framework of parasocial interaction and omnipticon. Although there is no research that examines the fan bases on Twitter in terms of their parasocial interaction, their motivation for use, and the behavior patterns they display as a virtual community, it is important to make a due diligence since surveillance culture and community characteristics are observed in these audiences. In the first part of this research, the transition processes from traditional media to social media will be discussed in order to better understand the impact of media on users. In the second part, the fan bases on Twitter, which are at the center of our research; surveillance, parasocial interaction, uses and gratifications approach will be explained theoretically in the context of digital community and identity. The third part of the research is the method part. The qualitative method step of this research, which was carried out using the mixed method, is the netnography technique, and the quantitative method step is the survey technique.