Dialogic Communication During Covid-19 Pandemic: An Analysis on Technoparks’ Social Media Usage in Turkey

Abstract

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, social media has promptly become an essential communication tool for institutions and organizations to generate and disseminate information as well as building effective dialogue with the public. In this regard, it was vital for technoparks like many other organizations to effectively manage their social media accounts in order to inform and communicate with their stakeholders. Therefore, the current study aims to investigate how technoparks in Turkey used their social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) during the first three months of the Covid-19 pandemic to facilitate dialogic communication with stakeholders, and to present the quality index of technoparks in terms of dialogic communication in social media management. In line with this aim, a content analysis of social media profiles maintained by 70 active technoparks examines the use of dialogic features originally developed in Dialogic Communication Theory. Results indicate that technoparks could not fully utilize the dialogic features of the social media platforms and that they mostly preferred to manage their social media platforms to disseminate information, which means they were away from dialogue. Recommendations are made for future studies and practitioners in terms of dialogic communication in social media management.

Social media usage in industrial markets: An examination of technopark companies in Turkey

“…Through content analysis, this study revealed the social media visibility and activity levels of companies operating under technoparks. Although there are many studies in the literature on examining the social media accounts of consumer-oriented businesses with content analysis (Parsons 2013;Peruta and Shields 2018;Shen and Bissell 2013;Vassallo et al 2018), the number of studies revealing the current status of the social media accounts of business-to-business firms is quite low (Aydoğan 2021;Gezginci and Maral 2019;Ubeda et al 2013). Therefore, this research, conducted on companies operating in the technology sector, holds importance as one of the few studies that shed light on the use of social media marketing in industrial markets.…”

“…These have predominantly centred on the technoparks rather than directly addressing the companies operating within them. These studies reveal the number of posts and likes on the official social media accounts of Istanbul Technopark and another study that investigates the social media platform used by technoparks during the Covid-19 pandemic, examining the dialogical communication elements present in their posts (Aydoğan 2021;Gezginci and Maral 2019).…”