The role of media in public diplomacy and the example of THY (Turkish Airlines)

With the end of the First World War, the Second World War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, the developments in the mass media and technological field brought the phenomenon of globalization. With the globalization phenomenon, the concept of public diplomacy, which is an alternative to classical diplomacy, emerged. Public diplomacy can be briefly expressed as the advertisement of a country in different nations, introducing its own culture and characteristics and having a voice in the public sector of that nation. Technological developments in the process from the past to the present have prepared the environment for the formation of technological infrastructure. At the same time, developments cause the world to experience a global transformation and allow the traditional media to be transferred to the digital environment. Turkish Airlines (THY) is one of Turkey's public diplomacy tools. In this study, THY's social media tools between 2019-2020 are analyzed using qualitative analysis technique.