SavedAdd your journal

Journals / 19 Mayıs Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi / 2025 / Cilt: 6 Sayı: 4

Constellative Public Opinion in the Age of Uncertainty: Interface Logics, Affective Momentum, and Legitimacy Configurations

Belirsizlikler Çağında Konstelatif Kamuoyu: Arayüz Mantıkları, Duygusal İvme ve Meşruiyet Dizilimleri

Serpil Seda Şimşek(JANDARMA VE SAHİL GÜVENLİK AKADEMİSİ, JANDARMA VE SAHİL GÜVENLİK FAKÜLTESİ)0000-0001-8016-5566
Pages
15–30
Publication Date
2025-12-30
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The findings show that visibility and emotional intensity shape the temporary crystallization of public perception.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:This study examines how public opinion is shaped in the digital society through the interaction between technical interfaces, affective momentum, and legitimacy configurations.
📊
Key Findings & Data:First, a comprehensive review of Turkish and English sources from 1990 to 2025 was conducted by using the keywords “public opinion,” “public sphere,” “algorithmic visibility,” and “legitimacy.” Second, a conceptual analysis protocol was employed so that definitional boundaries, distinguishing features, and analytical axes could be identified.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The findings show that visibility and emotional intensity shape the temporary crystallization of public perception.
🔬Design:Survey & Empirical Study
📍Scope:2025 Verileri
⚙️Variables:Konstelatif kamuoyu · arayüz mantıkları · duygusal ivme

Abstract

This study examines how public opinion is shaped in the digital society through the interaction between technical interfaces, affective momentum, and legitimacy configurations. The aim is to explain public opinion not as a continuous will but as a dynamic process that produces temporary alignments within digital environments. A three-stage method was applied. First, a comprehensive review of Turkish and English sources from 1990 to 2025 was conducted by using the keywords “public opinion,” “public sphere,” “algorithmic visibility,” and “legitimacy.” Second, a conceptual analysis protocol was employed so that definitional boundaries, distinguishing features, and analytical axes could be identified. Third, in the Turkish context, three indicative cases were examined through interface-based analysis, including coordinated hashtag campaigns, survey reliability debates, and leader-centered communication. Data were collected from public trend lists, screen recordings, media coverage, and platform verification tools. The findings show that visibility and emotional intensity shape the temporary crystallization of public perception.

Özet

Bu çalışma, dijital toplumda kamuoyunun nasıl şekillendiğini, teknik arayüzler, duygusal ivmeler ve meşruiyet dizilimleri arasındaki etkileşim üzerinden incelemektedir. Amaç, kamuoyunu süreklilik taşıyan bir irade değil, dijital ortamlarda geçici hizalanmalar üreten dinamik bir süreç olarak açıklamaktır. Üç aşamalı bir yöntem uygulanmıştır. İlk olarak, 1990–2025 dönemine ait Türkçe ve İngilizce kaynaklardan “kamuoyu, kamusal alan, algoritmik görünürlük, meşruiyet” anahtar sözcükleriyle kapsamlı bir literatür taraması yapılmıştır. İkinci aşamada, kavramsal çözümleme protokolüyle tanımın sınırları, ayırt edici nitelikler ve eksenler belirlenmiştir. Üçüncü aşamada, Türkiye bağlamında, koordineli hashtag kampanyaları, anket güvenilirliği tartışmaları ve lider merkezli iletişim olmak üzere üç gösterge olay arayüz temelli olarak incelenmiştir. Veriler, kamuya açık trend listeleri, ekran kayıtları, medya kapsaması ve platform doğrulama uygulamalarından derlenmiştir. Bulgular, kamuoyunun artık rasyonel müzakereyle değil, sıralama algoritmaları, duygusal yayılım hızları ve meşruiyet göstergelerinin etkileşimiyle şekillendiğini göstermektedir. Görünürlük ve duygusal yoğunluk, kamusal algının geçici olarak nasıl kristalleştiğini belirleyen ana faktörlerdir.

🔖

Cite This Article

Şimşek, S. S. (2025). Constellative Public Opinion in the Age of Uncertainty: Interface Logics, Affective Momentum, and Legitimacy Configurations. 19 Mayıs Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, Cilt: 6 Sayı: 4, 15–30. https://doi.org/10.52835/19maysbd.1816117

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (38)

  1. Adorno, T. W. (1973). Negative dialectics (E. B. Ashton, Trans.). New York, NY: Seabury Press.
  2. Benjamin, W. (1999). The arcades project (H. Eiland & K. McLaughlin, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
  3. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power (J. B. Thompson, Ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  4. Boyd, d. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), A networked self: Identity, community, and culture on social network sites (pp. 39–58). New York, NY: Routledge.
  5. Brady, W. J., Wills, J. A., Jost, J. T., Tucker, J. A., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2017). Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(28), 7313–7318. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1618923114
  6. Bruns, A., & Highfield, T. (2016). Is Habermas on Twitter? Social media and the public sphere. In A. Bruns, G. Enli, E.
  7. Skogerbø, A. O. Larsson, & C. Christensen (Eds.), The Routledge companion to social media and politics (pp. 56-73). New York, NY: Routledge.
  8. Bucher, T. (2012). Want to be on the top? Algorithmic power and the threat of invisibility on Facebook. New Media & Society, 14(7), 1164–1180. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444812440159
  9. Bucher, T. (2018). If.then: Algorithmic power and politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  10. Bulut, E., & Yörük, E. (2017). Digital populism: Trolls and political polarization of Twitter in Turkey. International Journal of Communication, 11, 4093-4117.
  11. Carlson, M. (2017). Journalistic authority: Legitimating news in the digital era. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
  12. Chadwick, A. (2017). The hybrid media system: Politics and power (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  13. Cohen, J. E. (2019). Between truth and power: The legal constructions of informational capitalism. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  14. Couldry, N., & Mejias, U. A. (2019). The costs of connection: How data is colonizing human life and appropriating it for capitalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  15. Dahlgren, P. (2005). The Internet, public spheres, and political communication: Dispersion and deliberation. Political Communication, 22(2), 147-162. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584600590933160
  16. Doğu, B., Kaptan, N., & Akser, M. (2013). Turkey’s media system in the digital age. In J. Trappel & M. Meier (Eds.), Media in Europe today (pp. 235–248). Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.
  17. Gillespie, T. (2014). The relevance of algorithms. In T. Gillespie, P. J. Boczkowski, & K. A. Foot (Eds.), Media technologies: Essays on communication, materiality, and society (pp. 167–194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  18. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (T. Burger & F. Lawrence, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (Original work published 1962)
  19. Kemp, S. (2023). Digital 2023: Turkey. DataReportal. Retrieved from https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2023-turkey
  20. Lippmann, W. (1997). Public opinion. New York, NY: Free Press. (Original work published 1922)
  21. Menke, C. (1998). The sovereignty of art: Aesthetic negativity in Adorno and Derrida (N. Solomon, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  22. Najafi, A., Mugurtay, N., Zouzou, Y., Demirci, E., Demirkıran, S., Karadeniz, H. A., & Varol, O. (2024). #Secim2023: First public dataset for studying Turkish general election (V8). Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QJA1ZW
  23. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1974). The spiral of silence: A theory of public opinion. Journal of Communication, 24(2), 43-51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1974.tb00367.x
  24. Papacharissi, Z. (2015). Affective publics: Sentiment, technology, and politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  25. Price, V. (1992). Public opinion. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications.
  26. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. (2023). Digital news report 2023: Turkey. Oxford, UK: University of Oxford. Retrieved from https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/
  27. Saka, E. (2019). Social media in Turkey as a space for political battles: AKTrolls and other politically motivated trolling. Middle East Critique, 28(2), 161–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/19436149.2019.1588456
  28. Stanfill, M. (2015). The interface as discourse: The production of norms through web design. New Media & Society, 17(7), 1059–1074. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814520873
  29. Topak, Ö. E., Özden, B., & Mutlu, E. (2014). The making of the “digital citizen” in Turkey: Neoliberalism, authoritarianism, and algorithmic governance. Citizenship Studies, 18(6–7), 781–795. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2014.944772
  30. Türkiye İstatistik Kurumu. (2023). Bilgi toplumu istatistikleri [Hane halkı bilişim teknolojileri kullanım araştırması]. Ankara, Türkiye: Retrieved from https://www.tuik.gov.tr/
  31. Twitter. (2021). Transparency report: Information operations. Retrieved from https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/information-operations.html
  32. Twitter. (2023). Twitter transparency report [January June 2023]. Retrieved from https://transparency.twitter.com/
  33. Tüfekçi, Z. (2017). Twitter and tear gas: The power and fragility of networked protest. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
  34. Van Dijck, J., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding social media logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2–14. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v1i1.70
  35. Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2019). Emotions, media and politics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
  36. Yeşil, B. (2016). Media in new Turkey: The origins of an authoritarian neoliberal state. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
  37. Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.
  38. Bucher, T. (2018). If.then: Algorithmic power and politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.