International Conference on Research in

Humanities and Social Sciences

Serbia | Belgrade | December 15-17, 2018

THE INTERNET AND POLITICS: TRANSFORMATION OF

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Asuman Kutlu
Beykent University

ABSTRACT
Perceived as a professional process in modern democracies, political communication is the interdisciplinary
study of the interrelationships between the political system, the media system and citizenship and mainly
concerned with how information spreads through media influences politics. The emergence of fast evolving
digital technologies has changed the way in which political communication takes considering a wide range of
new opportunities and strategies allowing political actors and citizens to rebuild the process. The internet has
removed the limitations of conventional media through providing an interactive platform for discussion and
debate and changing the relationship between information producers and consumers. Political parties and
actors can directly address their voters through their websites and use online communication platforms in
election campaigns for their political goals. On the other hand, traditional political acts such as demonstration
marches and rallies can be organized through online facilities offered by the Internet. This study focuses on
mediated political communication and the changes related to the inclusion of information and communication
technologies in politics and the use of digital technologies by political actors in Turkey to achieve their political
purposes.

Key words: Political communication, Turkey, new communication technologies, politics, elections.

Introduction
The media acts as bridge between political actors and public and the 2008 Obama Presidential
campaign is considered to revolutionize politics and political process. When he announced his candidacy in
2007, Twitter had just started and Obama was the first American
president who understood the power and the political relevance of social media just as John F. Kennedy to
understand the power of television. Since he reached millions of followers and donors due to his effective use

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of social media as a major campaign strategy, many political actors acted to adopt new communication
technologies, which have a developing role in political communication process in Turkey in the 2000s, about
ten years later than Western nations. The term “network citizenship” evolving out of the digital technologies
refers to understanding of citizenship, which is more participatory and dependent on rights and freedom than
passive and obedient citizens of the past. Especially during the later stages of the Internet development called
the Web 2.0 era, digital media have created a new political dialogue. It has taken the power of political
messaging away from the mass media model and placed it into peer-to-peer, public discourse. With the
internet revolution, politics has been understood in a radically different manner however a conventional
distinction can still be drawn concerning interpersonal communications (such as one‐to‐one discussions, say
on door‐steps), within group networks (like local meetings) and mass communications through the
conventional media (such as newspapers, radio and television broadcasts) (Norris, 2010). The internet have
also enabled political actors with limited resources to reach wider audiences and it has allowed political parties
in countries having a broad geographical structure such as Turkey to standardize corporate identity. Although
the pioneering studies in political communication in Turkey date back to 1960s, they could not go beyond
propaganda. The spread of private broadcasting, the spread of public opinion research companies and
development of political advertising in 1990s have increased the significance of research in political
communication. However, political communication is still perceived as a series of communication activities
during the election periods in Turkey rather than a set of activities that require continuity. The first and second
sections of the paper presents a review of existing literature on political communication and its transformation
through examing the features of by comparing the past and present of political communication. Following
these, the third section focuses on the adoption of new communication technologies by political actors both
in the eras of Web 1.0. and Web 2.0. in Turkey and the conclusion sums up the discussions.

The Concept of Political Communication

Since communication is central to any political system, political actors have always had a requirement
to communicate with other groups in society and had to convince people to support them for power and
position. Traditional definitions of political communication focus on the source and motivation and define it
as a series of edicts to society from the ruling group. However considering the role of the media in modern
states, political communication depends on three actors which are political sphere, nonstate actors and media
outlets which communicates independently but synergistically with one another but much of history, political
communication has been a linear, top-down process from leaders to people (Lilleker, 2006:1-5). The research
conducted usually describe three distinct ages shaping political communication in many democracies over the
postwar period. In the first age, much political communication served to relatively strong and stable political
institutions and beliefs. In the second, political parties faced with a more mobile electorate so adapted their

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communications to the news values and formats of limited-channel television and become more
professionalized. In the third and still emerging age of media abundance, political communication may be
reshaped by five trends, which are intensified professionalizing imperatives, increased competitive pressures,
anti-elitist populism, a process of centrifugal diversification, and changes in how people receive politics
(Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999). Although the roots of political communication date back to Ancient Greece
with the earliest studies of democratic discourse by Aristotle and Plato, the development of political
communication can be examined in three main stages.

The earliest classical era of political communications evolved as representative democracies

developed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Citizens and politicians were connected directly through
election canvassing, town hall meetings, printed handbills and posters, and local rallies and candidate hustings,
which were supplemented by the political print media such as newsletters, periodicals, journals, and
newspapers. Railways increased the opportunities for party leadership whistle‐stop tours and facilitated the
cheaper and faster distribution of daily newspapers with commercial advertising reducing the price of mass‐
circulation papers and magazines. Telegraphs connected distant reporters with news‐rooms and news wire
agencies. The early twentieth century saw the growth of wireless radios, used for leadership fire‐side chats
and the first party radio political broadcasts. Telephones transformed inter‐personal communications and
reduced the limits of distance. This era also saw technological advances in photography and wire
transmissions, which facilitated publication of realistic visual images, and during the interwar years, film
documentaries covered events and breaking developments around the world. The modern era of political
communications, following the end of World War II, witnessed the rapidly expanding role of television
broadcasting, carrying TV party political broadcasts. Inter‐personal communications between party
representatives and citizens continued to play a vital role along with mass‐circulation of newspapers and
magazines, which were later supplemented by expansion of satellite and cable transmissions and channels.
The third age of political communications is marked with the rise of the internet and a wide range of digital
technologies. Technological advances, leading to the development of the first visual browser in the mid‐1990s
and the World Wide Web, have transformed political communications beyond all recognition. The
developments include a growing expansion of interpersonal and organizational email and text messaging,
search engines, the blogosphere, and websites maintained by political actor and social media. Newspapers,
radio and television adapting to the digital landscape have taken advantage of new communication
technologies (Norris, 2010).

In a democratic state, media are often acclaimed as the fourth additional power controling people in
power and report to the electorate. This requires institutional independence from the political system however

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media depend on politics for information. Similarly, political actors depend on media to convey their messages
to citizens. The term “political communication” has always been difficult to define since both components of
the phrase cover a variety of definitions. Aziz provides one definition of political communication as the use of
various communication techniques by political actors to impose their ideological goals and policies to certain
groups, masses, or countries and transform them into action when necessary. Considering its historical
development, the phenomenon and process of political communication in ancient Greece differs from political
communication in the middle Ages, the New Age and today. This difference arises from the fact that societies
have dynamic structures, not static (Aziz, 2013:4). However, political communication is not limited to
politicians. Anyone, journalists or citizens, who receives, processes, or produces messages directly or indirectly
are related to political communication (Graber, 2005: 479). Therefore, we can redefine political
communication as a process in which public opinion intervenes in politics and political actors are involved. The
mass media create public opinion with the functions of informing, educating, raising awareness and socializing
and play an active role in the perception of the system and the transmission of political messages. The mass
media set the agenda for the public to determine what to think and talk about and to discuss, and manipulates
the society in the political sphere as well as in other social areas. In modern democracies, political
communication is mainly carried out through mass media, which transmit political campaigns to electorates.
Therefore, political communication strategies have gained a mediated structure in order to reach more voters.
Mass media also serve to adopt democratic culture and ideals to the public, to strengthen the belief in
democratic institutions and to maintain the political system. When considered in this respect, political
communication is examined under three main topics, which are all forms of communication
put forward by political actors to achieve their goals, communication directed by electorate to political actors
and media-mediated communication involving the actions of political actors.

The Internet and Transformation of Political Communication

The claims that the internet has “changed everything significantly” are as old as the internet itself but
when it comes to politics, we have to acknowledge the internet, unlike any other preceded technology, has
revolutionized politics and the political process. Scholars assert many differences between new media and its
older counterparts of radio and television but according Rogers, those differences stem from three
fundamental distinctions, which are interactivity, de-massification and asynchronicity. The new media are
interactive in a way that the one-to-many mass media could not be, it can reach many more individuals.
Interactivity is a desired quality of communication systems since such communication is expected to be more
accurate, effective and satisfying to the participants who are active in communication process. The new

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communication technologies are de-massified in which a message can be exchanged with each individual in a
large audience. The control of mass communication systems have moved from the message producer to the
media consumer. The new media are also asynchronous which means that they are capable of sending or
receiving a message at a time convenient for the user. The control of time is put in the hands of receivers
(Everett, 1986:4-6).

Through reciprocal rather than just one-way communication, citizens are no longer limited to voting,
strikes or public gatherings and may become involved in new political activities. People are expected to be
more knowledgeable as they can access huge amounts of information and find other people having similar
political views to speak, discuss and publish about the political issues. The internet has enabled average citizens
to participate in political process. This public space has created a much more democratic and impartial
communication platform that brings political actors and citizens together. Comparing the past and present of
political communication, we have several main differences. The first of these is the differences in the means
of communication. Traditional political communication channels such as newspapers, magazines, television
and radio have been replaced by the parties' websites and social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube and others. While new media has gained a personalized dimension, the propaganda language
dominated by traditional political communication and monologue discourses have been transformed into
dialogue as it has taken the power of political messaging away from the mass media model. Social media
creates a new political dialogue. The internet have become one of the strongholds of

campaigns during election periods in which politicians could strengthen the ties with their electorate. Their
accounts are followed by journalists as well as their supporters and opponents as they are important news
sources.

Some political scientists assert that the concepts of direct democracy in which all people can directly
participate in the political decision-making process would be realistic thanks to the wide-spread of new
communication technologies as they enable people to become an individuals who are well-informed and have
the ability to shape the society. It is not possible to reach people individually and ask their ideas with no other
technology. However, for other political scientists the internet merely offer new tools that current power elites
are using to maintain their dominance (Mosco and Foster, 2001). One can observe the use of the internet in
election campaigns for publicity, propaganda and communication with the electorate has played a growing
role since the beginning of 2000s. Compared to other mass media, the internet is a technology that spreads
very quickly and continuously increases the number of users. The latest data on the internet usage has
demonstrated that the number of internet users worldwide has exceeded 4 billion and Turkey has been in 20
top countries with the highest number of internet users (Internet world stats, 2018). The internet began to be

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used in political communication process in Turkey in the 2000s, about ten years later than Western nations.
Since 2007, the blocking of social platforms in Turkey has occurred on seven separate occasions due to
offensive content to Turkey. For instance in 2007, videos insulting the founder of Turkey, Atatürk, on YouTube
caused the platform to be blocked until the videos were removed.

Use of Digital Media in Political Communication

Turkey is a Republican Parliamentary Democracy and functioned under a multi-party system since
1945, however in 2018, Turkey has undergone a change from parliamentary to presidental system in which
the office of prime minister was abolished and executive power transferred to the president. Great National
Assembly of Turkey has 550 members, representing 81 provinces, elected based on the 10% election threshold
and most mainstream political parties are built on the following principles of Islamism, Nationalism and
Kemalism. There are currently five political parties in the parliament. Political parties use election campaigns,
a more professional way to make a strong impact on voters and convince them as they mainly aim to win
elections, which are the main drivers of democracy, to seize political power. Despite the popularity of social
media, politicians and political parties still conduct conventional campaigns and send emails to spread out
their message and express themselves better through including images or links showing their practices and
promises.

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Figure 1: The image above shows one of the busiest districts of Istanbul and flags and tents of five different parties
(Turkey elections 2018: Understanding the political parties, 2018).

Besides being cheap, e-mail campaigns allow politicians to personalize their message. In past cycles,
they were used as a form of voter contact, however with the implementation of new and creative means of
communication, politicians raise money, advertise with less expense, mobilize volunteers and respond to
opposition attacks. The 2002 general election was the first election in which parties utilized new
communication technologies as a tool for their campaigns. The Young Party, although founded five months
before the elections, advertised on popular search engines and sent propaganda e-mails to users. The party
received 7.24 percent of the vote however it did not get seats in parliament as it had less than 10 percent of
vote share (Genel seçim 2002, 2002).

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Political actors use web pages as an effective tool to publicize their activities, to make electorate
engage in communication processes and to develop policies based on feedback. All parties participated in the
2002 election built web sites however they did not include online discussion platforms which bring electrorate
and party officials together and the information flow was carried out from top to bottom. Instead of preparing
internet-oriented content, materials used in the conventional media were directly transferred to the websites.
Therefore the 2007 general election was generally considered the first election in which parties utilized the
Internet as an interactive tool for their campaigns. Since RTUK (The Radio and Television Supreme Council) did
not allow political commercials shortly before the elections, parties had to run their campaigns on print and
online media. Parties uploaded campaign advertisements to YouTube, Turkish newspapers on the internet and
news websites and could learn the number of users visiting party websites (Tokgöz, 2008). The statement
posted in April, 2007 to the official website of the General Staff to influence the elections, the government
decided on early elections making parties to carry out their campaign in a relatively short time. However,
parties optimized Web 1.0. Technology in which users could mainly engage with static web sites and passively
receive information. Through uploading public statements and announcing political activities and political
rallies.

According to a study conducted during presidential elections in 2014, websites of the political parties
aimed to inform the public rather than encouraging political participation. According to encoding template
used in the research, although all websites investigated were updated daily, they failed in communication
network index. Only one of them provided the opportunity for a simultaneous discussion between the
candidate and electorate. The candidate whose website had the highest score, received lowest percentage of
vote in the election. Considering the election results, the research conluded that the election campaigns
carried out through websites did not have a direct impact on the voter preference. Turkey is among the
countries with high voter turnout rates however political participation is limited to only electoral process,
rather than active participation in decision-making process and public institutions. As a consequence, political
actors did not make much of providing two-way communication and take opinions and complaints of the
electorate into consideration (Evren, 2015).

The rise of Web 2.0 technologies has further increased the convenience of the internet for political
communication. Web 2.0’s most important agent is social media and the opportunities offered by social
network sites, microblogging and wikis have provided new venues for politics supporting the idea of
participatory democracy. The use of social media in diplomatic relations to

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spread information and engage with the public has created a new name of “Twiplomacy”. Politicians can avoid
broadcast and print media to reach their potential voters through social media and Turkish politicians have
become more during elections to attract young voters as the country has a young and dynamic population.
Erdoğan was Turkey’s first leader to join social network. According to a report released in 2018, President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is one of the most active and influential world leaders on social media, especially on
Twitter and Periscope. He has 9.7 million likes and more than 112.000 followers, which makes him the most
important leader on Periscope and has 12 million followers on Twitter. The Turkish Presidency also activated
specific Twitter channels in Arabic, French, German, Russian and Spanish and set up the first channel Twitter
account for the hearing impaired which shares videos of the President’s speeches with sign language
translation. Erdoğan’s tweets are relate to government actions as well as local events and meetings.

Figure 2: Erdoğan joined youths for a sahur meal at a student dormitory after receiving a sahur invitation from a
student via Twitter saying that he is "coming if the tea is ready" (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan @ RT_Erdogan, 2018).

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The leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is approaching 1
million followers. While Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu have Twitter followers measured in millions, neither of the
leaders use it interactively. They usually use the platform to post announcements and refrain from answering
messages directed by the electorate. 2011 general elections witnessed the effective use of Web 2.0
technologies by political parties and leaders to engage citizens in the election process. Considering the fourth
position of Turkey among the top five countries on the Facebook, political parties opened hundreds of
Facebook pages and groups. Facebook and Twitter were important venues for political organizations,
dissemination of organizational activity and active participation of citizens acting and demanding rather than
passive recipients. They served as an alternative public sphere where political leaders could disseminate their
political discourses, develop new policies based on feedback from voters and the electorate could express their
demands and expectations easily (Aydemir 2008: 57). In 2013, The Justice and Development Party closed many
Facebook pages opened under the name of the party and Erdoğan to protect the corporate identity and
prevent the abuse of Facebook use by opposing users. Accordingly, in 2015, main opposition Republican
People's Party announced that in order to prevent manipulation and disinformation, they suspended Twitter
and Facebook accounts bearing the name of the party (CHP Facebook ve Twitter’da, 2018).

Despite the increased popularity of Twitter during Gezi Park protests which took place in 2013,
Facebook is the most widely utilized social networking site in Turkey. Political actors’ Facebook accounts
provide great potential to increase interaction between electotorate and people in power. Users like share or
comment on a post and politicians in turn respond to them. Facebook has become the channel of choice for
engaging potential voters during election campaigns. While many politicians discover social media channels
during election campaigns, social media engagement has become part of normal government
communications. As any mistake made on the internet could lead to a political crisis, almost all leaders and
parties work with social media teams rather than managing their pages on their own. In 2013, The Justice and
Development Party recruited a 6,000-member social-media team charged with sharing news and images on
social media that promote the party perspective and monitor online discussions (AK Parti’den, 2018). The use
of social media in politics has dramatically changed the way campaigns are run and how political actors interact
with potential voters.While Twitter is an ideal platform for politicians to spread both information and opinions,
Facebook pages or groups have created an alternative platform for all political institutions to participate in
direct dialogues with citizens.

Conclusion

The internet is changing the way politics work in the world as well as in Turkey and the use of new
communication technologies by politicians have recently emerged as the subject of many studies. As many

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politicians have realized the power of online strategies, they have integrated the internet into their campaigns
to influence people’s attitude, set agendas, and persuade to vote for them. The internet has placed the political
messaging into peer-to-peer, public discurse and changed the way how election campaigns were conducted.
This study aims to gain insight into how Turkish politicians cultivate new communication technologies to
attract voters and emphasizes the overall understanding of the role of them in political communication
process. The 2002 general election was the first election in which parties used new communication
technologies in election campaigns through advertising and sending propaganda emails to users however,
parties utilized the internet as an interactive tool in the general election of 2007 in which users engage with
static websites and receive information about political activities and rallies. In 2011, political parties and
leaders used Web 2.0 technologies effectively to get in direct touch with especially young voters who are more
likely to use technologically advanced products. Considering the position of Turkey among top countries on
Facebook and Twitter, politicians prefer social media to convetional platforms to reach their potential voters
and many voters follow their behaviors and explanations on social media. It is of great importance that political
leaders use their personal pages more interactively rather than using it as an announcement platform as the
internet is increasingly used in political context in Turkey.

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