Analysing the reactions to the termination of the Istanbul Convention (Twitter example)

The focal point of the thesis is the Istanbul Convention, an international convention, signed by Türkiye in 2011. Since the signature of the Convention, it has been widely discussed in Türkiye and has been subjected to various criticisms on the concepts of Islamic society, Turkish family structure, culture, societal gender norms and homosexuality. While the discussions on this issue were still ongoing, it was decided to withdraw from the contract in 2021. This decision has fuelled the debate and further increased the polarisation in society. The polarisation in the Muslim society as a result of an international agreement that claimed to reduce violence against women, necessitated an investigation of the topic within the boundaries of sociology of religion. This study's objective is to examine the responses to the decision over the three months between the decision to withdraw and the contract's termination. The conceptual framework of this study is divided into two areas that examine and discuss family and women's issues in Islam and Turkish society using the Istanbul Convention as a basis. One of the new media tools, Twitter, has impacted every aspect of daily life on a worldwide scale and begun to shape social issues by allowing anybody to share their thoughts. In light of this, Twitter was chosen as the site for the field study. 516 tweets about the contract's termination were netnographically analyzed, and the results were then subjected to descriptive and content analysis. The analysis shows that there is a strong tension between those in favour of and those opposed to the termination of the Convention. In the discourses of the group in favour of the annulment, it was emphasised that the annulment decision was essential as the Convention contained articles contrary to Islam and Turkish society and increased the rates of violence and divorce. Furthermore they claimed that the institution of the family was saved with this decision. While in the discourses of the group opposed to the annulment, the most frequently expressed claims were that the Convention was a comprehensive and major step towards the problem of violence and that women lost their life security with the annulment decision.