This article focuses on how virtual social networks affect socio-political life. The main theme of the article is how social networks such as Facebook and Twitter can direct voters’ electoral preferences, especially during election time, through the dissemination of manipulative content and fake news. The use of social media, which was initially thought to have a positive effect on democratization, has been extensively discussed in recent years as threat to democracy. Examples from the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, France, Brexit, Germany, the UK and Turkey will be used to illustrate the risks that social networks pose to democracy, especially during election periods.

Batı'da yoğun biçimde tartışılan İslamofobi sorunu sadece Batı'lı toplumlara özgü bir durum değildir. Kolonyal tecrübe yaşamış ya da radikal bir modernizasyona tabi tutulmuş Müslüman ülkelerde de bu sorun yoğun biçimde gözlenmektedir. Bu açıdan bakıldığında Müslüman ve Batılı toplumlarda İslamofobi probleminin bazı benzerlik ve farklılıklar taşıdığı görülmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı İslamofobi'nın sadece Batılı toplumlara özgü bir durum olmadığını Türkiye örneği üzerinden göstermektir. Çalışmada Türkiye'deki İslamofobik eğilimlerin tarihsel kökenlerine ilişkin bir çerçeve çizilecek ve bu sorunun genelde medya özelde de mizah üzerinden nasıl yeniden üretildiği sorunsallaştırılacaktır.

COVID-19 pandemic disease has affected the whole world in 2020. This process, which countries aim to overcome with the least damage by struggling with different strategies, has received the attention of public opinion on a global scale. Through early measures and its robust public policy, Turkey has been one of the most successful countries in fighting the epidemic, such as Germany and South Korea. The media undoubtedly has played an important role in communicating the threat posed by the pandemic and the associated risk factors. Among these, social media provides a data source worth studying in terms of risk communication due to its increasing number of users and its power to influence society and politics. Therefore, the present study investigates Twitter messages of the Turkish accounts of the BBC, the Deutsche Welle, and the Independent shared between March-10 April 2020. The data obtained from the relevant accounts were coded according to a coding table obtained in previous risk communication studies and containing factors specific to the COVID-19 outbreak, and the findings were analyzed by content analysis method. It is one of the most important findings of the study that while a significant part of the messages shared by the relevant accounts in the early stages of the pandemic has the function of informing the society, a remarkable part of them is for political criticism.