The relationship of politics and social media (The sample of Metropolitan Municipality Mayor of Ankara (İbrahi̇m Meli̇h Gökçek)

Social media, representing the most dynamic branch of internet, one of the major mass media space in our age, keeps its existence in a wide range from trade to economy, sports to politics and has a great role especially in relation with politics. Since politics always interacts with individuals in democracy, the ones taking part in politics have sought for ways to contact with voters who could put them into power. The periods when such contacts take place heavily have occurred during general elections; thus, politics and voters develop an intimacy in these times. As democracy develops, individuals have followed closely the agenda driven by politics and have taken part in it. In this context, media, standing as a bridge between voters and politics, have gained such a huge power in political stage that media has become a course in contact with politics. In parallel with developments in technology, media takes a different organic structure nowadays while this differentiation happens through Web 2.0 based social network. Getting involved in this frequently used network, politics have taken part in these courses which are popular to contact with individuals. It is İbrahim Melih Gökçek, present mayor in Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, existing as a major figure among Turkish politics for a long time. Gökçek, a politician using Twitter in the national and international studies on social media, a micro blog service which is one of the greatest representatives of new media, most frequently and actively out of Turkish politicians, has attracted the attention the ones studying in this field as having 1.7 million followers and 50 thousands tweets in almost 3 years, and is involved in practical application of the study. Criteria taken into account in composing theoretical parts of this thesis are that sample is a politician, working after being voted for, using social network most actively among politicians in his country, standing on the agenda as he may influence the agenda with his claims, assertive in this course. Within the perspective of relation between politics and social media, the study is categorized into four chapters. Social media and social network are studied in Chapter 1; political elections throughout Turkish Republic history along with relation between media and politics in Chapter 2; agenda setting notion and its impact on political voters in Chapter 3. Finally, frequency and categorical study of his Twitter account is carried out in Chapter 4 within social media use of İbrahim Melih Gökçek, mayor in Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, chosen for the analysis of the study.