Humor on Social Media in Turkey: The Reflections of Experiences in Social Networking Sites in Caricatures

Abstract

Currently social networking sites have been transformed from being a way of social interaction to a daily routine and a way of life. Various daily life experiences have been encountered through social networking sites, and novel relationship modes and behavioral dynamics have started to occur in social networking sites as well. The impact of social media and particularly social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have an extensive network of users, on individuals, society and culture has been a focal research area in various social sciences, especially in communication sciences. Research on social networking sites in the world and in a limited fashion in Turkey has notably been focusing on concepts and issues such as identity representation, socialization, social movements, privacy, surveillance and alienation. Content and/or user experience based research that investigates daily practices in social networking sites and their transitivity to real life directly or indirectly reveals the need to carry out society-focused research and the infinite potential of the area. This research investigates the representation of the role of social networking sites in daily life in caricatures by taking into consideration previous research and the potential of comic books to reflect social reality. Comic books and their major element caricatures are considered to be one of the most effective means for understanding the society. Accordingly, this study aims to interpret the social networking sites experience in Turkey through caricatures as an alternative and distinctive source of social history. The research has been designed as a qualitative research that explores the relevant caricatures of the most widely followed comic books in Turkey - namely Leman, Penguen and Uykusuz - through qualitative content analysis.