Hashtag publics, networked framing and the July 2016 'coup' in Turkey

Abstract

On 15 July 2016, Turkey faced a military coup attempt against the government. Most Turkish citizens learned about the coup attempt from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who contacted a television channel using FaceTime and urged citizens to go into the streets to resist it. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, were used heavily by Turkish citizens, with hashtags such as #TurkeyCoupAttempt, #darbeyehayir, #NoCoupInTurkey and #TurkeyCoup all trending during this period. This paper focuses on one of the most important anti-coup hashtags, #darbeyehayir (NoCoup), to examine how it was used during the anti-coup protests. By applying a mixed methods approach for Twitter content under the hashtag, the aim of the study is to unveil motivational frames used to call for action and provide a rationale for those participating in anti-coup protests. Results demonstrate that the framing dynamics emerging in the hashtags publics in which pro-Erdoğan supporters were dominant and used this process to provide support to the government during the ‘coup’. The hashtag was mainly used as a tool for government propaganda rather than encouraging civic discussions and participation, and ultimately democratic acts in authoritarian countries.

Leveraging Social Media Data Analytics for Tourism Marketing Policies in West Java, Indonesia

“…Currently, hashtags are being used extensively in a wide range of contexts, such as presidential initiatives, celebrity branding (Downing and Brun, 2022;Demirdis, Vicari, and Reilly, 2023), and social movements (Cao et al, 2022). Hashtagged words, phrases, or sentences can drive action and test widely accepted socio-cultural norms, dominant frameworks, and the influence of relevant actors while also increasing awareness of new themes, concerns, political, or social claims (Man, Palmer, and Qian, 2022).…”

“…The existence of this hashtag restricts the determination of ideological, political, critical, or viewpoint stances surrounding tourism because the term has very near negative and positive meanings. Users can boost visibility, reach new audiences, and build solid relationships with them through tweets that use certain hashtags (Demirdis, Vicari, and Reilly, 2023).…”