Twitter uses of metropolitan mayors in Turkey: Content and mention analysis

In today's rapidly growing use of social media by individuals, political actors also frequently utilize social media, which is an effective way to reach these audiences. Therefore, the role and importance of social media in political communication are increasing. Social media provides a significant advantage for political actors to quickly disseminate their messages, policies, promises, and desired messages to the masses. Additionally, social media has become an effective communication tool for political actors as it does not require costly methods like advertising, unlike traditional media. Recent studies indicate that Twitter is extensively used in political communication. Both political actors and citizens consider Twitter as a central point of political communication and actively utilize it. Political actors extensively use Twitter to convey their political messages, policies, enhance their visibility, strengthen their image, create awareness, mobilize the masses, and increase political interaction. Twitter, despite limiting texts to 280 characters, enables political actors to effectively summarize and convey their messages in an attention-grabbing manner. Moreover, political actors can draw attention to specific topics and keep them on the agenda using hashtags, which are special tools on Twitter, and engage directly with voters through mentions. By utilizing Twitter's retweet feature, they can indirectly convey a message by retweeting posts that align with their own views. In this context, this study aims to explore the role of Twitter in political communication and uncover the communication strategies of mayors in Turkey by taking the Twitter usage of metropolitan mayors as an example. The study aims to compare the Twitter usage and communication strategies of two different political parties, namely the Justice and Development Party (Ak Parti) and the Republican People's Party (CHP). Three metropolitan mayors were selected from each political party based on the size of the city they govern. The verified Twitter accounts of Alinur Aktaş, the Mayor of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, Tahir Büyükakın, the Mayor of Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality, and Uğur İbrahim Altay, the Mayor of Konya Metropolitan Municipality, were examined from the Ak Parti, while Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Mansur Yavaş, the Mayor of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, and Tunç Soyer, the Mayor of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality, were examined from the CHP. The tweets posted by metropolitan mayors between November 14, 2022, and January 30, 2023, were collected for a period of 12 weeks using the MaxQDA software in weekly intervals. The interaction (mention) rates of metropolitan mayors were also recorded on a weekly basis within the 12-week timeframe. The collected tweets were coded using the MaxQDA software, and the obtained data were analyzed using content analysis. Based on the findings of the study, it was determined that metropolitan mayors in Turkey frequently use Twitter to inform the public about better public services, share their personal opinions and perspectives on the national agenda, and share their location or event-related updates. Furthermore, when measuring the Twitter interactions of mayors during the 12-week research period, it was observed that Alinur Aktaş, the Mayor of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality from the AK Parti, and Ekrem İmamoğlu, the Mayor of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality from the CHP, ranked first. It was concluded that the Twitter interaction rates of metropolitan mayors are directly proportional to the population density of the cities they serve.