Potential of using the Metaverse in political communication: Opportunities and threats

Political communication is one or two-way communication activities that are carried out continuously by using advertising, propaganda and public relations in order to gain the trust and support of the public in the political system where a political view or organ exists, and thus to gain power. The concept of political communication is a communication system that has existed since humanity's claim to rule and will continue to exist as long as humanity's claim to rule exists. Political communication methods and tools have developed and transformed in parallel with the development of humanity. The active use of the Internet in daily life has led to the transfer of the concept of political communication to the digital world. Political figures have expanded their fields of activity by using the possibilities of the digital world. Today, the active use of digital media by the majority of people has made the digital world an indispensable area of political communication. Today, politicians, institutionally and individually, have created their accounts on important platforms of the digital world such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and carried their activities to these platforms. With the rapid development of technology, important developments occur in the digital world. One of these developments is the realization of the concept of 'Metaverse', that is, a virtual universe, which was first mentioned in Neal Stephenson's novel 'Snow Crash'. With Metaverse, cards will be redistributed, and development and transformation will take place in many areas of our lives, from education to entertainment, from entertainment to communication, and from communication to commercial activities. The fact that Metaverse will bring development and transformation in every field has caused us to ask the question of whether the Metaverse can be used as a political communication tool, and what opportunities and threats it can create if used. In order to find the answer to this question, data were collected with semi-structured interview questions with fifteen IT experts who worked in the field of Metaverse and political parties with groups in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, and these data were analyzed in detail with content analysis. As a result, it has been seen that the political parties with groups in the parliament closely follow the developments in Metaverse and work in this field. The common opinion of informatics and political parties is that Metaverse can be used as a political communication tool, but the current state of Metaverse contains many deficiencies and security threats. When these deficiencies are eliminated and security gaps are closed, Metaverse has the potential to be used actively in every field as well as in the field of political communication. Keywords: Metaverse, The Potential Useage Areas of Metaverse, Threats and Opportunities of Metaverse for Political Parties, Political Communication, Digital Media.