Digital construction of social reality: A study of brand communication based on data mining

The concept of reality is the main subject of discussion in many fields. While the majority of the discussions in the field of philosophy continue on whether reality exists or not, it is discussed how reality is constructed in disciplines such as sociology that focus on society. As a matter of fact, the examination of this subject by two basic fields such as sociology and philosophy also affects other fields that are fed by them. Especially sociology's theses on the constructability of reality attract communication science to this field. The fact that reality can be constructed as a basic assumption questions whether a reality can be built with brand communication studies in terms of communication science, and if there is a constructed reality, on which dynamics and how it is realized. Communication science has to take into account the changing communication technologies while making evaluations in this respect. For this reason, the research focuses on the construction of brand reality in the digital environment through the TOGG brand sample. Content analysis method was used in the research. The data required for the research was also obtained from the reflection of the TOGG brand on Twitter through data mining in accordance with the study. Machine learning algorithms were used to analyze the data. In the algorithms, word frequency tools were used together with decision trees and topic modeling algorithms. As a result of the research, the discourse of the brand and the discourse of the users were compared, the decision trees were tested and the results of the issue modeling algorithm were evaluated. In addition, the time of brand discourse and the reactions of users in the same time period were examined. As a result, it has been observed that brand discourse has a direct effect on users. To put it more clearly, brands can build their own reality in the digital environment. How reality is constructed and on which dynamics it is constructed are given in detail in the research section. Keywords: Data mining, Brand, Social Reality, Social Construction, TOGG