Public relations activities of civil society organizatons on internet/ social media in the context of participatory democracy "Analysis on a case study of twitter posts of "We Will Stop Femicide Platform"

Technology affects the field of communication as many other fields and it transforms the communication practices. It is stated that new communication technologies, which are able to reach more people when compared to traditional media, are effective in molding public opinion and setting the agenda by creating a new and vigorous public sphere. From this point of view, the "communicative action" practices that have emerged through new communication technologies have contributed to participatory democracy by enabling people to influence governance. Non-governmental organizations are civil initiatives aimed at creating public benefit with the participation of individuals. It is argued that the congestions of representative democracy could only be overcome by civil society democracy and is claimed that the communicative actions in the new public spheres, which were emerged by means of new communication technologies, contribute to this. In this context, it is claimed that internet and social media, which offer important technical advantages in terms of participation practices, have created an alternative communication channel for public relations activities of non-profit advocacy organizations that cannot use traditional media. Communication is vital for non-governmental organizations that need to mobilize material and human capital in order to achieve their goals. On the one hand, this thesis aims at reaching valid and reliable data on whether the social media channels defined as a new public sphere demonstrates this feature and on the other hand whether the social media is a suitable communication medium for non-profit advocacy organizations. After the literature which clarifies the problem in order to generate a substructure for the first and second chapters has been cited, data collected by using the content analysis technique on the sample have been classified and interpreted in the third chapter. Key Words: Civil Society Organizations, Democracy, Participation, Social Media, Public Relations