A Comparative Evaluation of the Candidates' Use of the Twitter (X) Platform in the 14 May 2023 Presidential Election
Chapter from the book: Bayram, A. T. & İpar, M. S. (eds.) 2023. Academic Research and Evaluations in Social Sciences - I.

Mehmet Can Demirtaş
Kırklareli University

Synopsis

Elections, which allow individuals to transfer their management rights to their representatives with their own will in the process of fully ensuring the functions of representative democracy, reveal an important field of competition for political parties and candidates who want to gain management power. Since success in political competition depends on obtaining the preferences of a higher number of voters, political parties and candidates resort to marketing efforts in the process of influencing voter preferences. Today, the fact that relevant marketing processes are turning to digital environments in line with technological developments necessitates the conduct of academic research on new communication areas. This study examined the Twitter (X) platform accounts of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Muharrem İnce and Sinan Oğan, who were among the candidates in the Turkish Presidential Election held on 14 May 2023. It aims to evaluate the numerical data obtained within the scope of 5 criteria, namely "the number of followers, the number of forwarded tweets, the number of retweets received on tweets, the number of tweet likes and views" during the 37-day campaign period  between 07/04/2023-13/05/2023. As a result of the study, all candidates except Muharrem İnce increased their number of followers during the campaign period, Sinan Oğan was the candidate who sent the most tweets with 508 tweets, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's tweets had the highest total number of likes and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had the highest number of retweets and views. It was determined that it reached the highest number within the scope of the criteria. In addition, as a result of the ratios developed for the total number of tweets sent by the candidates during the campaign process, it was determined that the "retweet, like and view" ratios of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's Twitter account were higher than those of other candidates.

How to cite this book

Demirtaş, M. C. (2023). A Comparative Evaluation of the Candidates' Use of the Twitter (X) Platform in the 14 May 2023 Presidential Election. In: Bayram, A. T. & İpar, M. S. (eds.), Academic Research and Evaluations in Social Sciences - I. Özgür Publications. DOI: https://doi.org/10.58830/ozgur.pub308.c1405

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Published

October 23, 2023

DOI