Political communication and Tiktok: An evaluation of political parties' Tiktok communication strategies in the context of 2024 local elections

ABSTRACT Master's Thesis POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND TİKTOK: AN EVALUATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES' TIKTOK COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES IN THE CONTEXT OF 2024 LOCAL ELECTIONS Elif ÇİFTÇİ Isparta University of Applied Sciences The Institute of Graduate Education Department of Economics and Management Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Esra VONA KURT Today, in addition to traditional media (radio, television, newspapers and magazines), social media environments (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, etc.) are among the leading channels where political communication activities are carried out. This study aims to examine how TikTok, one of the social media platforms that have radically changed the way political communication activities are carried out, is used within the framework of political communication. Aiming to evaluate the rapid interaction and content dissemination potential of TikTok through short videos, the study examines the role TikTok plays in the dissemination of political messages and the political discourses created by political actors through their political content production practices. Based on mainstream theories in communication studies, the study focuses on revealing how TikTok is used by mayoral candidates within the framework of the March 31, 2024 Local Governments and Local Authorities elections and determining what role it plays in political communication strategies as a social media platform. This study, which aims to reveal the function of the use of TikTok, a social media platform, in political communication in providing information and forming public opinion for democratic societies, analyzes the use of TikTok within the framework of the election campaigns of the presidential candidates of the 10 metropolitan municipalities with the largest population in Turkey. The analysis is conducted on the TikTok accounts owned by the candidates between February 12, 2024 and March 31, 2024. The findings of the study reveal that TikTok is increasingly being used in political campaigns as a social media tool, but parties are not using this medium effectively. The research results also show that metropolitan mayoral candidates create professional, serious and centralized content on TikTok, their interaction strategies are weak, and the integration with entertainment and viral culture, which constitute the main features of this platform, is extremely weak. Key Words: Political communication, New media, Social media, TikTok, Content analysis 2025, 133 pages