Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 219 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES (ONLINE) - ISSN: 2717-7130 Vol:1, Issue: 3 pp: 219-224 JEL Codes: L8, L82, L89 BÖYÜKBAŞ Ş. (2020). “The role of Social Media in International Relations vol: 1 ıssue: 3 pp: 219-224 Keywords: social media, international relations, changes, development . Article Type Review Article The Role of Social Media in International Relations Arrived Date 31.05.2020 Accepted Date 08.07.2020 Published Date 31.07.2020 Şeyma Nur BÖYÜKBAŞ* ABSTRACT Being a social entity; Starts to be raised by parents who are be able to socialize, survive, communicate and interact with his environment since birth. Thus, the society, which comes together from people who socialize by communicating, has a unique set of values called “culture” that affect the behavior and beliefs of people. In the 21st century digital life; With the global use of internet technology as a means of communication, the digital culture defined as a whole of material values that individuals maintain in their databases and online accounts has begun to affect people's lives and beliefs. In this context. Social Media has a big impact in the 21st Century and in this article we will discuss and make ourselves an opinion how it impacts with international relations and how it would be able to make changes throughout the world view and politics. Meanwhile everybody is getting to become a social influencer it got much easier to speak about the own opinion and reach out for a wider public. INTRODUCTION Since Technology developed in the past few years mostly everybody got a smartphone in which they have a social media account. Social media refers to websites and applications that are designed to allow people to share their content quickly, efficiently and in real-time. It allows people to broadly share content and engage with other people. Social Media has a very big impact on everyone’s life it changed the routine of most peoples days and therefor that started new careers.Through Social media everything got much easier; for example : „to advertise something, to get in contact with somebody even if that person is on the other site of the world, or it got much easier to get famous throughout the internet and gain more people interested in you.“Like or Title said “The role of Social Media in International Relations“, but what exactly is International Relations ? International Relations is the way in which two or more nations interact with and regard each other, especially in the context of political, economic, or cultural relationships.It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the interaction of the actors in International politics, including state and non-state actors.Now that we know what our Keywords mean, what kind of impact do they actually have with each other ? What is actually the role of Social media for IR ?, does it help in any way? Main Body According to IR theorist and author, David Bollier “The internet and other information technologies are no longer a peripheral force in the conduct of world affairs but a powerful engine for change.”The way information is disseminated to the public has changed with social media and the internet. In the old times, information was accessible only through state institutions, and tightly controlled information flowing between governments and citizens. Through the internet we see this paradigm turned entirely on its head as the costs of capturing and sharing information fell drastically and the * seeyma.nur.39@gmail.com, Yıldırım Beyazıt University, International Reliations Student, Ankara/TURKEY https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3855-6851 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3855-6851 Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 220 rapid growth of citizen journalists, blogs and online activists began.Since the increasing usage of digital technologies and social media channels expand from the private sector to the public sector, the use of social media to help policymakers accomplish their strategic objectives at home as well as internationally has become a commonly embraced tactic. We've seen social media help create radical change over the past decade and shift countries towards equality and democracy. Experts often praise social media to bring other issues to the mainstream audience's attention. Of starters, Syria's refugee crisis, the Ice Bucket Challenge of motor neuron disorder (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) even these days people are protesting for the Black lives matter movement also known as „BLM“, are all examples of problems that benefitted from the power of social media to disseminate photos and information to the public rapidly.Also these days were we live in a pandemic, social media helps us to entertain ourselves and teach us what to do because even doctors are broadcasting or making videos and through social media shopping for food and clothing got much easier. Since Technology developed in the past few years mostly everybody got a smartphone in which they have a social media account. Social media refers to websites and applications that are designed to allow people to share their content quickly, efficiently and in real-time. It allows people to broadly share content and engage with other people. Social Media has a very big impact on everyone’s life it changed the routine of most peoples days and therefor that started new careers. Through Social media everything got much easier; for example : „to advertise something, to get in contact with somebody even if that person is on the other site of the world, or it got much easier to get famous throughout the internet and gain more people interested in you.“ Like or Title said “The role of Social Media in International Relations“, but what exactly is International Relations ? International Relations is the way in which two or more nations interact with and regard each other, especially in the context of political, economic, or cultural relationships.It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the interaction of the actors in International politics, including state and non-state actors. Now that we know what our Keywords mean, what kind of impact do they actually have with each other ? What is actually the role of Social media for IR ?, does it help in any way? According to IR theorist and author, David Bollier “The internet and other information technologies are no longer a peripheral force in the conduct of world affairs but a powerful engine for change.” The way information is disseminated to the public has changed with social media and the internet. In the old times, information was accessible only through state institutions, and tightly controlled information flowing between governments and citizens. Through the internet we see this paradigm turned entirely on its head as the costs of capturing and sharing information fell drastically and the rapid growth of citizen journalists, blogs and online activists began.Since the increasing usage of digital technologies and social media channels expand from the private sector to the public sector, the use of social media to help policymakers accomplish their strategic objectives at home as well as internationally has become a commonly embraced tactic. We've seen social media help create radical change over the past decade and shift countries towards equality and democracy. Experts often praise social media to bring other issues to the mainstream audience's attention. Of starters, Syria's refugee crisis, the Ice Bucket Challenge of motor neuron disorder (also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) even these days people are protesting for the Black lives matter movement also known as „BLM“, are all examples of problems that benefitted from the power of social media to disseminate photos and information to the public rapidly.Also these days were we live in a pandemic, social media helps us to entertain ourselves and teach us what to do because even doctors are broadcasting or making videos and through social media shopping for food and clothing got much easier. The notion of e-diplomacy as a force for social good, or digital diplomacy, was a topic often debated by scholars, civil servants and academics. In digital life, people use digital media to communicate and live their individual existence in these environments according to the values brought by digital culture. Social media is the general name given to digital media that people use today to communicate. According to the internet and social media usage statistics published in 2019; active social media users as 45% of the world population 2 Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 221 hours 16 minutes per day, 63% of Turkey's population uses social media daily average of 2 hours 46 minutes (Hootsuite and Wearesocial, 2019). Communication has never been this easy before social media. The ease of communication and access to people has changed our values positively or negatively. We now have a new human typology. People who used to show their existence by speaking, producing in the society; he is now trying to show his presence on social media by sharing messages, status and pictures. It is a fact that social media has many positive and negative effects on individuals' beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. The positive effects of social media on individuals; it is due to the wealth of possibilities of accessing and disseminating information, and its ability to be used as a means of communication and information. In social media, individuals can acquire and spread information very quickly with their friends. In this way, individuals were able to become famous, watched and appreciated by everyone through social media. Another positive effect of social media on individuals' attitudes and behaviors; If there is a pressure that exceeds, it can be used as a communication tool by exceeding the limits and distances against bullies. The convenience of social media on access to and dissemination of information has positive effects on individuals' attitudes and behaviors; As individuals can exhibit narcissistic, sadistic, interests and attitudes that prioritize interests, they can also cause negative self and moral development in individuals' attitudes and behaviors. With the social media culture, special moments and private lives that were previously confidential, forbidden to share and forbidden are opened to the opinions and views of others. Children can share their most special moments for the sake of appreciation. Unfortunately, most of the children have the perception that “I will share my special memories, the more I will be open to appreciation”. Let's try to explain the corruption of social media in the moral values of the human with the example of artificial intelligence boat named “Tay”. Artificial intelligence bot named "Tay", developed by Microsoft company in 2016 and working on Twitter, programmed to learn and interact with people; It starts correspondence with a very calm and classical style. However, Thai; As soon as 16 hours, the character that produces sexual, racist and swear words is closed by Microsoft. Developed as a result of intense and misuse of social media by children; As a result of the technology addiction and cyberbullying behaviors that negatively affect children's attitudes and behaviors, moral values and beliefs, children can turn into individuals who do not come into society, who are introverted, cannot express their thoughts, and whose imagination is weak, depressed and prone to suicide. The negative effects of social media on the moral values of our children, social media; This is due to the fact that it can be used as a means of emotional exhibitionism for the sake of personal appreciation and appreciation, and that it can be used as a means of sedition by serving false and fake news as if they were real. Through emotional exhibitionism that negatively affects our children's moral values, children can open everything private and private to everyone. Our children like being visible on social media. Children can share their feelings, thoughts, joys, sorrows and special moments with people they do not know. If we leave the body aside in terms of sexuality, we expose our naked souls on social media to people we do not know. From this perspective, we all become actors of a spiritual pornography. To put it more clearly; Today's man simply says, "Look at me, watch me and watch me." With our social media posts, we turn ourselves into photos and messages. We try to satisfy our desires to be appreciated and appreciated by using social media as a mirror of images, by showing us as if we are not who we are, with gilded and non-our messages, photos corrected with photo editor programs. We take selfies, we share our image to others on social media. Nowadays, our children are looking for the image they share their own value and they want to be liked by these images. The notion of e- diplomacy as a force for social good, or digital diplomacy, was a topic often debated by scholars, civil servants and academics. On the first Table we are able to see in percentage how often and how many people are using which social media platform to get their daily news informations. Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 222 Table 1. % of Each Social Networking Sites‘ Users Who Get News on the Site Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_use_in_politics We just discussed about the benefits of Social Media influencing International Relations but what about the negative aspects of it ? There are many people on those sites who are actual frauds and are just trying to get attention while disrespecting other people or destroying their life or work. Unfortunately those people are just trying to force their own way by not thinking about other people and being selfish; for example: „Racism“. They are also wrong role models and therefor a bad influence for children, who will be our next generation ,which we should not teach wrong. That makes us think about wether or not social media is a good influence on International relations but to put it into a pot and label it as bad we should actually do more research and make our own opinion about everything. It is not a bad way to influence something but like in everything world topic related we have to be careful and we should not jump into any conclusions. On the second Table 2 we are able to see reasons in percentage to not use social media platforms. Table 2 Reasons for Not Using Social Media Source: https://adriandayton.com/2010/10/what-if-your-clients-dont-use-twitter-facebook-or- linkedin/resizedimage548312-reasons-for-not-using-social-media/ Debates on Media and Public Relations The influence of the media is increasing day by day and it is seen that it is accepted that it works as a fourth force, which acts as an effective, controlling function and directs the society, especially in political societies where political powers exist. Media has a formative and transformative effect on society. Those who have held power / power since the time the media appeared, wanted to take these tools under their control and control. The media, which is very effective in terms of the formation of the public and the seizure of social consciousness, draws attention as a tool that those who have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_use_in_politics https://adriandayton.com/2010/10/what-if-your-clients-dont-use-twitter-facebook-or-linkedin/resizedimage548312-reasons-for-not-using-social-media/ https://adriandayton.com/2010/10/what-if-your-clients-dont-use-twitter-facebook-or-linkedin/resizedimage548312-reasons-for-not-using-social-media/ Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 223 political power want to control. In this part of the study, the relationship between public opinion, public opinion creation, media and media and public opinion is examined. Media Concept Although it is used quite intensely today, the limits and scope of the concept of media are not clear. For example, it is called “television media”, besides; The term “media” is used to mean all of them, especially print media, radio and television (even the internet) (Kocadaş, 2005). When it comes to the media, it is understood in a society that all communication systems that provide the opportunity to carry out the three main functions for storing messages and information, transmitting them remotely and updating cultural and political practices in whole or in part (Mora, 2008). Since mass media are formed within the economic, political and cultural structure of the society in which they are a social institution, the dominant forces of the time, the struggles of power and the mode of production have a direct effect on the form and content of mass media (Dağtaş, 2006). The Concept of Public Opinion The concept of public opinion; It is possible to express it as “common attitudes of those who belong to the same social groups towards a certain event”. Harwood Childs defines the public as “the sum of opinions” and emphasizes that the interaction and communication within the group and among the groups must be taken into consideration. It is also known as “the thoughts of the people that are mostly united in any subject”. The expressed public opinion is the sum of the ideas and concepts that reflect the common judgment of the society (Childs, 1940). Kejanlıoğlu (2005) states that the public will be defined as "the total opinion of the public on issues that concern everyone or the views and attitudes supported by a large part of the public.Kapani (1989), on the other hand, defines the public opinion as “an opinion that dominates the group or groups of people dealing with a particular controversial problem at a certain time”. Moressi (2006), on the other hand, can be attributed to the situation that the citizens expressed in a generalized and verifiable majority in a generalized and verifiable manner, individually or collectively. Media and Public Relations The primary task of the media should be to inform. Mass media are indisputable means to spread information as a value. (Charon, 1992). Information can be provided by preserving the content of the news and making the news transfer accurate and impartial. The transferred news-information pair directly affects the public. Information also includes educating the public and contributes to the education of the individual over a lifetime by creating an invisible education system or in other words, it should undertake this task. Personal attitudes, environmental factors, ideologies, population, culture, political institutions and mass media are the main elements of public opinion. The first stage in the formation of public opinion; It is the period of "mass behavior". Opinions occur within primary groups during this period. The second stage is the period of "public debates and contradictions". The opinions formed in this period are transferred to the secondary groups. The last stage is the “institutionalized decision making” stage. As a result of this stage, a positive or negative action is put forward. (Bektaş, 1996). The media should never say that they are the only truth when creating public opinion and giving specific messages, and the messages they give should be informative, positive and constructive (Bittner,1986). When the right message is given targeting the right masses, it can be mentioned that there is a real communication mutually. Masses can gain spirit and vitality with messages. This creates the mobility of societies in spirit and vitality. The media must be the pioneer of the mobility and productiveness of the society and form the public opinion from this perspective. Mass media have the opportunity to address large masses of people. For this reason, press organs, radios, televisions, social media environments are expanding the area of the masses that are called and at the same time they become very effective in forming and organizing public opinions. These effective features of the media are used in forming or reforming public opinion. As the media directs the public, from time to time, the public can direct the media. The public participating in programs aimed at informing the public by telephone ensures that the topics of many programs remain on the agenda for a long time. The media should always embrace some democratic concepts and views that need to be protected. The Volume: 1, Issue: 3, July 2020 issjournal.com 224 future of a society depends on a bright and clear perspective, its studies in science and culture, education, a media that is aware of its responsibilities, a modern and productive public created under healthy conditions. Conclusion and Discussion Citizens are no longer just contact users, they still create their own media reporting thanks to the internet and create new forms of political participation and leadership through the use of social media sites. It can be argued that one of the main ways where the influence of the Internet has been felt is that modern forms of social and political action can be made possible. The internet is changing governance in the 21st century, while transnational connectivity is being opened up to many millions of online societies. In fact, national security is evolving, governments are facing an increasing number of challenges and perpetrators may be entities, organizations, persons or other combinations. Some states are weaker inside than their private forces. In a transnational struggle over the agenda of world politics, private organizations, NGOs, industry and unions can compete for media attention from major countries. So we can tell that International Relations as a profession has only lately begun to deal with social media proliferation and the consequences for global diplomacy. Yet if the new climate is anything to go by, then social media is well on the way to undermining conventional political networks and processes. All in all we could say that this is only the beginning of development in International Relations through social media, which will cause many changes and will be able to make the citizens will come true through their teamwork on the internet. Many many people are working for a better world but also some of them are trying to make it worse and through social media everybody is able to see it, thats why it will help on the one hand International Relations to know what the people want and what they want to change but on the other hand, it would also be a bad influence thats why everybody has to be careful about their posts and should make their own research. Therefor we can be excited to see those big changes and always be open to help our community for growth between those nations. REFERENCES Bektaş, A. (1996). Public Opinion, Communication and Democracy. Istanbul: Context Publications. Bittner J.R. (1986). Mass Communication: An Introduction, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, s.9. Charon J.M.(1992). Media World, Istanbul: Communication Publications, p.182. Childs H. (1940). An Introduction To Public Opinion, New York: Wiley And Sons, s.44 Dağtaş E. (2006). Tabloid Newspaper in Turkey, Ankara: Utopia Press, p.33. Hootsuite ve Wearesocial (2019). Global Digital Report in 2019. https://wearesocial.com/global- digital-report-2019 (30.03.2019). Kapani M.(1989). Introduction to Political Science, Ankara: Bilgi Publishing House, p. 147. Kejanlıoğlu B.(2005), “Public Sphere”, Concept Dictionary - Discourse and Truth, (ed.) Fikret Baskaya, Ankara: Free University Library, p. 267. Kocadaş B.(2005). 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