Utilization of digital media in political communication services: Analysing the websites of parties during loyal elections on 31st March 2019

There have been many political, social and economic changes with the digital media. Political communication theories and applications were also affected by these changes. Political communication field which have been affected by generally digital media and specially internet technologies which come together, bring in many acquisitions to political actors, especially governing and the governed. Debates around this concept, which can be described as digital political communication, holds importance on re-interpreting concepts such as participation and democracy. There has been a new political communication discourse with digitalization. This study examines online activities of political parties and its nominees in the lights of digital transformation of political communication. Sample of this study is websites of political parties and its nominees during March 31, 2019 Local Elections for Antalya Metropolitan Municipality. Relevant websites examined by content analysis method in order to analyze proficiency of political actors' usage of the web. According to acquired information, even though political parties and its nominees give importance on the web, they could not maximize the outcomes of their websites sufficiently on their digital campaigns. Keywords: Political Communication, Political Advertising, Digital Media, Websites