Devam vs. Tamam: 2018 Turkish Elections

TL;DR

This study analyzes 108 million tweets from Turkey's 2018 election period to understand political polarization, revealing distinct ideological and media preferences among supporters and opponents of Erdogan's reelection.

Contribution

It provides a detailed social media analysis of voter polarization during a major political transition in Turkey using large-scale tweet data.

Findings

Strong ideological polarization between groups

Distinct media consumption patterns

Different entertainment preferences

Abstract

On June 24, 2018, Turkey held a historical election, transforming its parliamentary system to a presidential one. One of the main questions for Turkish voters was whether to start this new political era with reelecting its long-time political leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan or not. In this paper, we analyzed 108M tweets posted in the two months leading to the election to understand the groups that supported or opposed Erdogan's reelection. We examined the most distinguishing hashtags and retweeted accounts for both groups. Our findings indicate strong polarization between both groups as they differ in terms of ideology, news sources they follow, and preferred TV entertainment.