Perceptions of Turkey in the US Congress: A Twitter Data Analysis

Abstract

The way we interact with individuals, companies, and communities has been altered by our usage of online social media sites and services. Simultaneously, the use of social media as a data source for social scientific inquiries has increased substantially in recent years. This study uses Twitter data analysis to investigate the views of United States (US) Members of Congress on Turkey, and to see if these perceptions reflect some of the trends in US-Turkey relations. Our initial view is that the Twitter conversations among Members of Congress appropriately reveal changes in the course of perceptions vis-a-vis relations between the two countries. With that assumption in mind, we evaluated Twitter data from 2009 to 2021, and analyzed it using statistical methodologies, network analysis, computational text analysis, and topic modeling tools. The findings indicate that Twitter data is a useful proxy for evaluating the perception of Turkey among US Members of Congress.

Keywords

Social Media Analysis, Twitter, US-Turkey Relations, US Senate, Foreign Policy Analysis

Citation

Hakan Mehmetcik, Melih Koluk, and Galip Yuksel, “Perceptions of Turkey in the US Congress: A Twitter Data Analysis”, Uluslararasi Iliskiler, Vol. 19, No 76, 2022, pp. 69-89, DOI: 10.33458/uidergisi.1226450

Affiliations

• Hakan MEHMETCİK, Assoc. Prof., Department of International Relations, Marmara University, Istanbul
• Melih KOLUK, Research Asst., Department of Politics and International Relations, Marmara University, Istanbul
• Galip YUKSEL, Ph.D. Student, Institute of Social Sciences, YÖK 100/2000 Ph.D. Scholarship Holder, Istanbul University, Istanbul