Kazakhstan narration on instagram: A semiotic analysis of Kazakhstan photos of Turkish social media influencers producing travel content

Along with technological developments, there have also been developments in the field of media. As a result of these developments, new media emerged as a media type and then became widespread. Thanks to digitalized communication, social media emerged in parallel with the ease of sharing content such as photographs, texts and videos in online environments.In social media channels that can be used anywhere at any time, some social media users have succeeded in reaching large followers with the content they produce. This has led to the emergence of the concept of social media influencer. Individuals who share content based on their personal experiences within the framework of certain topics and reach a large number of followers through these posts are referred to as social media influencers. Social media influencers, who produce content for social media on a wide range of topics, are also known for their travel content. These social media influencers, who also define themselves as travelers and share their travel experiences with their followers on social media, often share the content they produce about the countries they visit to their followers. Especially the historically and culturally rich Central Asian countries are among the destinations that attract the attention of travelers/social media influencers. In this framework, Kazakhstan, one of the Central Asian countries, is taken as a basis in this thesis.In this context, the focus of the study is to reveal how Kazakhstan is represented in the photos that shared by travel themed social media influencers with their followers who lives in Turkey during their visits to Kazakhstan. With this purpose of the thesis, Kazakhstan photos obtained from the Instagram accounts of social media influencers who produce travel content were analyzed with the semiotic method and the image of Kazakhstan presented in social media was revealed. In this context, the focus of the study is to reveal how the photos shared by social media influencers sharing travel content in Turkey with their followers during their visits to Kazakhstan represent Kazakhstan. In order to reach the sample of the study, Instagram pages of all Turkish social media influencers producing travel content were identified. The 67 social media influencers producing travel content constituted the universe of the study. All these 67 travel content producing Instagram pages were analyzed and it was determined whether they had visited Kazakhstan. As a result of this examination, 6 social media influencers who visited Kazakhstan and shared posts from there were found. In this context, in order to reach the findings of the research, Rotasız Seyyah (@rotasizseyyah), Yol Günlükleri (@yolgunlukleri), Burak Durgun (@buraakdurgun), Vizesiz Geziyorum (@ vizesizgeziyorum), Baya İyi (@baya_iyi), Çok Okuyan Çok Gezen (@cokokuyancokgezen) users were identified among the social media influencers who share travel content and two photographs of Kazakhstan from each of them were examined.Kazakhstan photos obtained from the Instagram accounts of social media influencers who produce travel content were analyzed with the semiotic method and the representation of Kazakhstan presented in social media was revealed. This analysis is based on Roland Barthes' model of semiotics. As a result of the analysis, it was seen that social media influencers who produce travel content, mostly represent Kazakhstan as a rural destination where natural beauties such as mountains, lakes and steppes are dominant. In this context, it is noteworthy that the cultural richness and historical values of Kazakhstan are not sufficiently shown by social media influencers. In the context of the results, it was concluded that the historical and cultural values of Kazakhstan should be recognized more by social media influencers in Turkey. In this way, it is foreseen that it will be possible to explain the cultural richness and historical values of Kazakhstan to more people in a more accurate way.