Relationship between Social Media and Political Parties

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the capacity of social media usage and the social media strategies of political parties that became the members of Turkish Parliament after 2011 election. The social media usage increases in parallel to the improvements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and it becomes an important tool with its communicative functions to realize activities in social, political, and economic fields. In the globalization process, developments in ICTs and changes in the meaning of democracy have been realized parallel to each other. Politics has become more open to interaction and the participation of different actors. ICTs have created new opportunities to interaction and participation of social actors. These improvements require transformations in the role and functions of political parties. They have to arrange their programs and structures according to participative understanding of democracy and new technologies. Social media usage is seen as a requirement for political parties and party leaders for adaptation to these developments, and it is also seen as a device with its potential for realizing participation, communication, and interaction to adapt to the changes in the understanding of politics.

Determinants of a political party’s social media strategy: A comparative analysis of Tanzania’s opposition political parties’ Twitter practices

“…In relations to that, there is vibrant scholarly attention to social media and elections including campaigns (Broersma and Graham, 2012; Hitchen et al, 2019). In general, scholarly work on social media and political parties has mainly focused on two areas: (i) covering the emerging extreme parties use of social media for mobilization and communication (Ben−David and Matamoros−Fernández, 2016; Ernst et al, 2017) and (ii) political parties in Europe (Baxter and Marcella, 2012; Demirhan, 2014; Kalsnes, 2016; Klinger, 2013; McNair, 2012). Thus, there is a need to widen the analysis by including political parties from different regions and in particular from Sub-Saharan Africa.…”