Refereed Original Paper
Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of
Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter
Keywords:
fragmentation, echo chamber, polarization, youth participation in politics, social media

Seval Yurtcicek OZAYDIN, Tokyo Institute of Technology
Ryosuke NISHIDA, Tokyo Institute of Technology

Abstract
Aiming to contribute to the debate whether the Internet and in particular social networks areleading to echo chambers of fragmented groups or to public sphere, this article investigates the
dynamics of echo chambers of followers of Turkish political youth groups on Twitter. It focuseson two classes: Official youth organizations of ruling party and main opposition party, and one
independent group. Retrieving over 40 million tweets of 30 thousand followers of these groups,
5.5 million interactions between 2016 and 2018 were analyzed. Strong echo chambers are found,and no weakening observed with a small-scale exception through cross-ideology exposure byindividuals following two groups. The results are discussed along with the political lines and the
independence level of the groups.

Received: 26 April 2021; Accepted: 23 August 2021

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Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

OZAYDIN et al

1.1 Literature Review

1. Introduction

Early studies of online communication favored
The emergence of the Internet and in particular

the first side of this debate. For example,

social media has unprecedentedly enabled the

Gentzkow and Shapiro (2010) found that the levelinteractions of individuals among the world. Itof online fragmentation is much lower than thegave rise to a fundamental debate whether it isfragmentation

leading to favoring the democracy by ensuring

interactions, and also claimed that they found no

individuals easy access and even exposure toevidence for the increase of fragmentation on thewidespread

viewpoints,orhinderingintheface-to-face

human

the

Internet. Lee et al. (2014) found that online

improvement of democracy. In the former case,political discussions can moderate the politicalthe communication media have a potential topolarization. In a more recent work, Boxell et al.

evolve to a public sphere through exposure to(2017) found that the political polarization is on

different or even opposite ideologies with athe rise in the US mostly among individuals who

significant and effective volume of interactions.

less likely use the Internet and social networking

However in the latter case, the interactions

sites.

between different minded groups are limited andHowever, some of the recent literature favors

significantly less effective than the interactions

the other side of the debate. That is, thiswithin each group, forming and reinforcing the

emergence also expedites people to gather

so-called “echo chambers”, potentially leading toaround the same ideological lines on online

group polarization (see Sunstein (2001); Sunstein

platforms and interact mostly to those having(2002)). Studying online political conversations

similar or even same perspectives towards groupon a single- or multi-country basis, an intensepolarization (see Sunstein (2002)), raising aeffort has been devoted to contributing to thisthreatdebate.

fragmentation, echo chambers and polarizationtodemocracy.

StudiesononlineOnline political discussions in Turkey are held

cover a wide range. Analyzing 30 thousand tweets

mostly on Twitter. Along this line, focusing on

on abortion (after the shooting of an abortion

the dynamics of the interactions between the

doctor on May 31, 2009), Yardi and Boyd (2010)

followers of Twitter accounts of three largest

studied the dynamics of group polarization overpolitical youth groups of Turkey in a period oftime. They found that although similar minded

three years, this study analyses whether the echopeople strengthen group polarization, interactions

chambers of these fragmented groups are

between different minded people lead to weaken

reinforced or weakened over time on Twitter. It

the polarization over time via exposure to broader

also analyses the role of deliberative cross-perspectives. Focusing on two distinct types ofideological exposure in the weakening of theFacebook groups, i.e. one on conspiracy theories

echo chambers. In order to establish a concreteandbasis for this study, the relevant previous works

Quattrociocchi et al. (2016) found quantitative

are introduced below.

evidence of echo chambers on social media.
On

the

the

other

on

other

scientific

hand,information,

onlinepolitical

fragmentation and its consequences have become18

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

core issues in the field (see Papacharissi (2002);

they are rarely exposed to cross-ideologicalDahlberg (2007)). In order to provide a large-

content. Analyzing Twitter data during 2011

scale multi-country analysis on extremism due tonational elections, Aragon et al. (2013) foundonline political fragmentation, Bright (2018)evidence of balkanization of the Spanish online

studied the discussion activities of 115 politicalpolitical conversation. As Switzerland is a uniquegroups among 26 countries and found that thecountry with a fragmented party system andmore people get ideologically extreme, the lessstrong federalism, Rauchfleisch and Metagthey tend to interact with the other extremes in(2015) studied the political communication ofdifferent ideologies. Very recently, analyzing the

Swiss politicians on Twitter. Analyzing the online

political commenting of around 700 thousand

interactions towards 2011 federal elections,people, Bond and Sweitzer (2018) found that the

Garcia et al. (2015) found a strong polarization inincrease in the engagement in politics lead to an

the online political network. Analyzing around six

increased communication between ideologicallythousand tweets during 2011 federal elections indissimilar people and decreased homophily.

Canada, Grudz and Roy (2014) found evidences

Barberaonlinefor both political polarization, and potential forfragmentation is in accordance with the offline

cross-ideological interactions. Supporting themeasures. Analyzing Facebook interactions ofanalysis of around 700 thousand South Korean

liberal(2014)

andshowedconservative

that

the

news

Twitter users’ activities with survey data, Hahn etorganization pages, echo chambers are observed,

partisanal. (2015) showed how news following on Twitterand political orientation segregates partisan

is sharply polarized due to selective exposure. On

political discussions on social media (Jacobson etthe other hand, studying Facebook data of theal (2015)).

UK and Italy regarding the consumption ofBecause online political fragmentation cannot

political information, Casteltrione (2014) argued

be independent from the unique cultural aspects,

how social networking could reduce politicalit was also investigated on the basis of countries.

fragmentation and polarization via reducing theAnalyzing the interactions of 10.1 million US

level of selective exposure.

Facebook users with news shared on social

According to Dahlberg (2007), both sides of

media, Bakshy et al. (2015) found ideologicalthis debate -whether the Internet is leading tohomophily in friend networks, and in their work,echo chambers of fragmented groups or to an

Colleoni et al. (2014) also measured homophily in

expanded public sphere- make their observations

Twitter. Conover et al. (2011) focused on theon very ‘small pool’ of data and also the data arepolitical alignment of Twitter users, and Colleoni

usually used selectively. Research based on

et al. (2014) focused on the structural differences

surveys or content analyses usually concentrateof homophily of Democrats and Republicans inon a small set of ‘significant issues’. What is more,

the US. Performing content analysis on thealthough more research is needed, the underlying

network of selected political topics regarding

assumptions should not contain flaws, which2010 midterm elections, Himelboim et al. (2013)

usually arise from to Habermasian theory.

found that because the clusters of Twitter users
in the US are usually politically homogeneous,
19

Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

1.2 Research Gap and Research QuestionsOZAYDIN et al

RQ1: Are there strong echo chambers between

In this subsection, we describe the researchfragmented groups, namely the followers of the

gap we address and the research questions wepolitical youth organizations?

rise in this work. As stated above, political

RQ2: If there are, do these echo chambers

fragmentation, echo chambers and polarization

reinforce or weaken over time?

in a country are inseparable from the unique

RQ3: Do the strength of echo chambers depend

socio-cultural aspects from it. Furthermore,on the type of the youth group, i.e. whether it is acountries with a dense political agenda provide apolitical party’s official organization, or an

fruitful environment for research.

independent political organization?

Focusing on Turkey, which has been facing

On the other hand, despite the efforts to detectharsh political experiences and the polarization‘who tweets’ using Twitter data (see Sloan et al.

of the society is argued to increase sharply during(2015)), it is generally not known directly who is

the last decade, this article aims to contribute toyoung, making it difficult to study youth

the debate in the light of the arguments ofparticipation in politics on social media. Hence,

Dahlberg (2007) within a dynamical perspective

this study chooses a different direction. Rather

covering a three-years period. To name just a few,

than attempting to detect young people on

the rise of political Islam through AKP (JusticeTwitter, the study focuses on the political youthand Development Party) and Gulen movement

groups. Instead of ‘young people’ directly, thisduring the last decades, Syrian war andarticle claims to study on the followers of theimmigration issues, Gezi Park Protests in 2013,

Twitter accounts of political youth groups. This

the conflict appeared between AKP and Gulenway, the first step in the fragmentation research

movement which resulted in a failed coup attemptwhich is generally to detect the individuals

informing fragmented groups is already achieved

2016,

and

the

regimechangefromparliamentary to a so-called ‘Turkish-stylein the present work.

presidential’ in 2018 make this country an

In order to contribute to the efforts on youth

interesting cradle for research in this field. Gezi

participation in politics as well from a structural

Park Protests has been the first big case inviewpoint, this article studies the youth groups inTurkey that social media played a key role,

two classes. First one is the official youth

leading up to studies such as Haciyakupoglu andorganizations of political parties. In this class, theWeiyu (2015), Ogan and Varol (2017), Varol et al.

youth organizations of the two biggest political(2014), and Budak and Duncan (2015).

parties of Turkey, i.e. ruling party and the main

However, to the best of our knowledge, acomprehensive

study

on

onlineopposition party are studied. The second class ispolitical

the independent political youth group, and thefragmentation and echo chambers in Turkey islargest group in this class is studied. Hence,

missing. As the youth is in the center of most of

spanning a 3-year period, the dynamics of echothese political experiences such as Gezi Park

chambers of the followers of fragmented politicalProtests, such a study focusing on Turkish youth

youth groups is analyzed. The method of thisbecomes even more prominent. Hence, we ask

study follows the critics of Dahlberg (2007). That

our main research questions (RQs) as follows.

is, in order to avoid from being selective and from20

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

sticking to a small set of ‘significant issues’,

Locating in the central right, the supporters ofrather than a topic or hashtag basis or a content

AKP do not follow strict ideological line, but

analysis, the whole space of interactions onrather span a wide spectrum. The main issues

Twitter between the groups are studied. To makecreating fragmentation among Turkish people

observations on a ‘big pool’, over 40 million

are secularism, headscarf rights, Kemalism,

tweets of around carefully selected 30 thousand

human rights, youth politics and economy. AKP

individuals were analyzed.

has been in the center of these issues, usuallyThis article is organized as follows. In the next

receiving serious criticism for polarizing thesection, political youth groups in Turkey underpeople ideologically.

consideration and their ideological lines are

2.2 CHP

introduced. Next, the method for retrieving andanalyzing the data are presented. The results are

Established in 1923 and though experienced

discussed in a theoretical perspective, which isseveral transformations during the last century,

followed by the conclusion.

CHP is the founder party of the modern Turkish
Republic, claiming to follow the six basic

2. Political Youth Groups in Turkey

principles of Kemal Ataturk: Republicanism,
Populism, Secularism, Reformism, Nationalism

In order to provide a through insight to thisand Statism. However, in the last decade, CHP isstudy, a brief introduction to the political groups

criticized to be moving away from thesein consideration is given in this section. The

principles, in particular for the candidates andofficial youth organizations of political parties inpolitical alliances during the elections. Being a

Turkey consist of the official members of thecentral left party, CHP covers a very wide range

parties below a certain age. Rather than focusingof ideologies, mainly social democrats and also

on youth issues, these youth organizations

including a spectrum from radical leftists todirectly follow the general politics of the party.

people who define themselves as not even leftists

On the other hand, following their ideologicalbut only republicans.

lines, independent political youth groups create

2.3 TGB

their own policies. This study focuses on theofficial youth organization of the ruling party,

Established in 2006 through the union of 65

AKP (Justice and Development Party) and main

student clubs (most of them being Ataturk’s

opposition party, CHP (Republican People’s

Thought Clubs) at 40 universities, TGB (Youth

Party), and the largest independent political

Union of Turkey) is the largest independent

youth group TGB (Youth Union of Turkey).

political youth organization, currently organizedin 65 universities and hundreds of high schools in

2.1 AKP

70 cities. Claiming to be Kemalist, patriotic,

The party AKP was founded in 2001 and has

secular and anti-imperialist, TGB follows a strict

been the ruling party since 2002 elections. AKP

ideological line.

claims to be a ‘conservative democratic party’,At the first glance, the ideological line of TGB

and Islam has been the core value of the party.

may look similar and even overlapping to the21Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

OZAYDIN et al(claimed) line of CHP up to some point, and

I. The followers of the official Twitter accounts ofstrictly against to the line of AKP. However, in thethe three groups in concern were detected,

daily politics, some serious conflicts emerge

namelybetween TGB and CHP, and reconciliations take(i)	@AKGenclikGM:

place between TGB and AKP. Due to such

Official

youth

organization of AKP,

conflicts and reconciliations over time, a variable(ii)	
@chpgenclikgm: Official youth organization

volume of face-to-face and online interactions canof CHP,

be expected between these fragmented groups.

(iii) @
 genclikbirligi: TGB, the independent
political youth organization.

3. Methodology

II. In order to eliminate the accounts whichcannot be considered as reflecting the nature of

An unbiased analysis spanning a long period

the political youth groups, filters were applied tofor detecting the strength and the dynamics ofeach set of followers according to the criteria

echo chambers among fragmented groups

below:

require to make no assumptions based on the(i)	Verified accounts (with blue tick). These

daily political issues. Hence, analyzing the pureaccounts usually belong to politicians,

volume of interactions within the groups andjournalists, celebrities etc.

between the groups over time can also shed light(ii)	Accounts with screen names consisting of

onto question whether temporal conflicts andeight consecutive digits. These accounts

reconciliations have a significant effect on theare usually maintained automatically.

dynamics of echo chambers.

(iii) Accounts with screen names including the

In order to analyze the dynamics of theabbreviations AKP, CHP, TGB, etc. These

interactions between the carefully selectedaccounts usually belong to party or groupsubsets of the followers of the Twitter accounts ofprofessionals, not natural followers.

the political youth groups in concern, the data ofIII. The common followers of the groups were

this study covering the range from January 1,

detected and labeled as listed in Table 1.

2016 to December 31, 2018 were retrieved fromIV. Due to the rate limits of Twitter, because it

Twitter during January 2019, using Tweepy

would be infeasible to retrieve all the tweets of all

library for Python programming language

the users in sets A, C and T (making more thanhalf million), commensurate subsets As, Cs and(Tweepy, 2010). Finding the volume of intra- andinter-group interactions, the obtained numbers

Ts were picked as follows. There are users withreveal the strength of echo chambers of eachtoo many or too few tweets that potentiallypolitical youth organization for each year.

unbiased the results. Hence, rather than aObservation in the 3-years period shows whether

random sampling, we sorted the users in eachthe echo chamber of each group is weakened orset, i.e. A, C and T by their total number of tweets.

reinforced with respect to time, indicating the

We compared these sorted sets with respect todisposition to group polarization (Sunsteintotal number of tweets of the users. We found that

(2002)). In details, the basic steps of the method

taking 5% of each set with an upper bound of
30.000 tweets leads to subsets As, Cs and Ts withare as follows:
22

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

comparable numbers of tweets, excluding theTable 1. The sets of considered Twitter users

users with too many and too few tweets.

Number of
Followers

V. The tweets of the users in the subsets As, Cs
and Ts were retrieved. Note that, the tweets of

Set

Explanation

the users following more than one group (such as

A

Following only AKP(@AKGenclikGM)

335.345

C

Following only CHP(@chpgenclikgm)

50.766T

Following only TGB(@genclikbirligi)

191.750

VI. Each retrieved tweet was checked if it is aAC

Following AKP and CHP

1.432

Comment, or Reply,

AT

Following AKP and TGB

2.227

CT

Following CHP and TGB

4.017

ACT Following AKP, CHP and TGB

148

the sets AC or AT) were not retrieved because it
is not possible to determine exactly which user
actually belongs to one group, and also following
the other group. The intersecting sets and thesubsets are illustrated in Figure 1.
Retweet, Retweet

withconstituting an interaction with a target user
(whose tweet was retweeted or received a reply).
If so, the target user was searched among theseven sets listed in Table 1. If found, the relevant

4. Results

counter was incremented.
Please note that the sets of the follower
accounts are fixed (according to Steps I-IV), andThe goal of this study is to analyze the strength

then their tweets are retrieved at once for theand the dynamics of echo chambers of fragmented

three-years period (according to Step V). Hence,

Turkish political youth groups to reveal thethe results are not affected from the change ofinclination to group polarization and extremism.

the followers during that three-years period.

The groups are studied in two classes: Official
youth organizations of (ruling and opposition)
parties, and an independent group.
At the time of the study, AKP (@AKGenclikGM)
had 391.662, CHP (@chpgenclikgm) had 60.505
and TGB (@genclikbirligi) had 205.552 followers.
After the filtering, these numbers reduced to339.155, 56.366 and 198.145, respectively, and theresult of the classification of distinct and common
followers of accounts are given in Table 1. Subsets
As (of size 16767), Cs (of size 2538) and Ts (ofsize 9587) were obtained. Up to last 3.200 tweets(between January 1, 2016 and December 31,2018) of each user in subsets As , Cs and Ts were

Figure 1. Sets of the followers of

retrieved, -as this is the maximum allowed

Twitter accounts of considered

number by Twitter. The numbers of tweets
retrieved are 24.361.415 for As, 3.812.329 for Cs,

official youth organizations.
23

Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitterand 12.193.410 for Ts, exceeding 40 million

OZAYDIN et al

Table 2. The number of interactions from As

tweets in total. Next, for each subset, the tweetsAs

were analyzed according to item VI of the Method
section, and among them, the numbers of2016

detected interactions (Retweet, Retweet with

RetweetComments or Reply) are found to be 3.756.220
for As, 383.025 for Cs and 1.353.917 for Ts during

2017

2018

611846 869731 1643179

RT wComment

7512

12929

26539

Reply

59919

89043

141418Retweet

8628

8798

23577

RT wComment

397

596

1612

Reply

4259

5526

11053

Retweet

8652

11090

27279

RT wComment

400

697

1625

Reply

6166

9030

14112

Retweet

12826

16929

22141

479

471

957

Reply

1922

3391

5353

Retweet

4392

8376

11827

RT wComment

197

2298

4042

(following A) have the highest percentage. On

Reply

2661

3169

5521

the other hand, no significant change is observed

Retweet

1325

3144

9934

RT wComment

168

370

910

Reply

1548

4779

7089

Retweet

2980

2134

5885

49

102

291

988

732

1227

A

the 3-years period.
Now, let us analyze the results for each group,
starting with AKP.
C

4.1 AKP

The obvious result for As (the sample subset ofthe official youth organization of the ruling party,
AKP) as shown in Figure 2 (and the dataTpresented in Table 2) is that almost all of theinteractions are made within the fragmented
group, clearly indicating an echo chamber.
Retweets with Comment and Replies can be against

AC RT wCommentor for the original tweet while a Retweet usually
supports the original tweet and also contributes
to its spreading. Hence, this result is the mostobvious for Retweets, in the sense that theATinteractions with the like-minded individuals

over years 2016, 2017 and 2018 (depicted withCT

red, green and blue in the figure, respectively, in

ACT RT wComment
Reply

the figures). The only noticeable changesuggesting a weakening of the echo chamberover time is in the Retweets with Comment to theusers following both AKP and TGB (AT).

Figure 2. Percentage of interactions from As
24

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

Table 3. The number of interactions from Cs

4.2 CHP
Looking at the numbers of the interactions
only, the weakest echo chamber is found for Cs

Cs(the sample subset of the official youth
organization of the main opposition party, CHP)
in all types of interactions (see Figure 3, and theAdata is presented in Table 3). Although the

2016

2017

Retweet3583

6327 16933

RT wComment

127

294

917

Reply

830

1461

4711

Retweet10322 19210 50957

highest percentage of interactions is done with C,
there is a significant amount of interactions withthe other two groups, T being the maximum; andespecially with the intersections, CT being theC

RT wComment

maximum. What is more, from 2016 to 2018, theinteractions to T and especially to CT exhibit anincrease, as interactions to C tend to decrease.
T

861

2804

2018

5422

Reply

12037 17851 36530

Retweet8201 14812 45807

RT wComment

311

672

2047

In the case of Ts (the sample subset of the

Reply

1852

2459

9962

independent political youth group TGB), again

Retweet

1409

2073

2394

RT w Comment

313

108

230

Reply

459

1153

1547

Retweet

142

312

884

RT wComment

8

13

79

suggesting a weakening of the echo chamber.

Reply

73

136

414

Although the like-mindedness in TGB is

Retweet6283 12510 43980

4.3 TGB

looking at the numbers of the interactions onlyAC(see Figure 4 and the data is presented in Table4), though not as high as AKP, the echo chamber
is found to be stronger than CHP. Similar to thecase of CHP, the interactions with the CT

AT

intersection exhibit an increase over time, again

considered to be the highest, TGB forms a muchCT

weaker echo chamber than AKP.

ACT

RT wComment

420

965

Reply

1173

4644 12589

Retweet

1044

962

2381

RT wComment

10

42

127

Reply

708

444

607

5089

4.4 
Analyzing the Results of Three Groups
Together
Because one can retrieve only around the last
3200 tweets of a user, the more a user tweets

Figure 3. Percentage of interactions from Cs(more than around 1.000 times a year), the more
25

Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

OZAYDIN et al

Table 4. The number of interactions from Ts
Ts
2016

2017

2018

Retweet

8707

10526

33363

RT wComment

302

584

1725

Reply

3514

5966

13265

Retweet

24420

37137

85903

RT wComment

1271

1760

4911

retrieved tweets will belong to the most recent

Reply

4149

5968

20987

years. Therefore, in order to reveal the dynamics

Retweet76122 124093 317200

A

Figure 4. Percentage of interactions from TsCover the years, instead of the exact numbers, theTpercentages of the interactions are analyzed andpresented in Table 5. Take As in 2016, forexample, i.e. analyzing the interactions from theusers in subset As to all the users in each distinct

ACset, the following results are found:
Retweets: 94.04% to A; 1.33% to C; 1.33% to T...
RT wComment: 81.63% to A; 4.31% to C; 4.35% toAT

T..
Reply: 77.35% to A; 5.50% to C; 7.96% to T..
Echo chambers at various levels were observedCTfor each fragmented group. The strongest echochamber is found in the youth organization of
AKP, where the like-minded individuals in thisACTgroup reinforce the group positions and tend to
be in more insulated ‘deliberative enclaves’ (seeRT wComment

4119

8063

24704

Reply

42945

60817

123914Retweet

1345

1293

2322

RT wComment

41

102

195

Reply

398

719

1404

Retweet

1478

2986

10291

RT wComment

112

322

3865

Reply

2142

2451

5879

Retweet

20507

43750

130233

RT wComment

1271

2478

9465

Reply

4135

10657

31477

Retweet

2492

2788

7231

RT wComment

45

95

365

Reply

897

782

1469

Sunstein (2001); Dahlberg (2007)). In the case of
CHP, though being very limited, the weakeningof the echo chamber is achieved mostly throughresults of TGB suggests that being an independent

the individuals on the boundaries, contributing topolitical group, TGB tends to a more rational

the expansion of public sphere towards a stronger

deliberation between ‘unlike-minded’ groups.

democracy (see Habermas (1989)). This result

Sunstein (2001) discussed that such a rationalsuggests an accordance with the policy of CHP indeliberation paves the way for avoiding groupthe last decades to cover diverse ideologies. The

polarization and extremism which lead to social
26

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

Table 5. The percentage of interactions from As, Cs and Ts
As

A

C

T

AC

AT

CT

ACT

Cs

Ts

2016

2017

2018

2016

2017

2018

2016

2017

2018

Retweet

94.04

94.52

94.23

11.56

11.26

10.37

6.45

4.73

5.69

RT with Comment

81.63

74.04

73.77

6.2

6.0

6.59

4.22

4.36

3.81

Reply

77.35

76.98

76.12

4.84

5.19

7.1

6.04

6.83

6.69

Retweet

1.33

0.96

1.35

33.31

34.18

31.2

18.08

16.69

14.65

RT with Comment

4.31

3.41

4.48

42.0

57.25

38.98

17.75

13.13

10.86

Reply

5.5

4.78

5.95

70.26

63.42

55.05

7.13

6.83

10.58

Retweet

1.33

1.21

1.56

26.47

26.35

28.04

56.36

55.75

54.08

RT with Comment

4.35

3.99

4.52

15.17

13.72

14.71

57.52

60.15

54.62

Reply

7.96

7.81

7.6

10.81

8.74

15.01

73.81

69.62

62.46

Retweet

1.97

1.84

1.27

4.55

3.69

1.47

1.0

0.58

0.4

RT with Comment

5.21

2.7

2.66

15.27

2.2

1.65

0.57

0.76

0.43

Reply

2.48

2.93

2.88

2.68

4.1

2.33

0.68

0.82

0.71

Retweet

0.68

0.91

0.68

0.46

0.56

0.54

1.09

1.34

1.75

RT with Comment

2.14

13.16

11.24

0.39

0.27

0.57

1.56

2.4

8.55

Reply

3.44

2.74

2.97

0.43

0.48

0.62

3.68

2.81

2.96

Retweet

0.2

0.34

0.57

20.28

22.26

26.93

15.18

19.66

22.2

RT with Comment

1.83

2.12

2.53

20.49

19.7

36.58

17.75

18.49

20.93

Reply

2.0

4.13

3.82

6.85

16.5

18.97

7.11

12.2

15.87

Retweet

0.46

0.23

0.34

3.37

1.71

1.46

1.84

1.25

1.23

RT with Comment

0.53

0.58

0.81

0.49

0.86

0.91

0.63

0.71

0.81

Reply

1.28

0.63

0.66

4.13

1.58

0.91

1.54

0.9

0.74

destabilization and supports social cohesion.

small exception through the individuals following

Despite the dense political agenda andtwo groups.

arguably increasing social polarization of the

A more detailed analysis could take into

country, no significant change in the strength ofaccount the number of followers of each group.

echo chamber of each group is observed in a

Let us take C, T and CT for example with the

3-year interval between 2016 and 2018, with thenumber of followers approximately 51 thousand,27

Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

192 thousand and 4 thousand, respectively. At thefirst glance, the number of interactions from Ts

OZAYDIN et al(from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2018).
However, the more a follower tweets, the more

to C and from Ts to CT (in Figure 4) looks

retrieved tweets will belong to most recent years,

comparable. However, taking into account thepotentially biasing the results. In order tonumber of individuals in each set, it is revealed

overcome this potential bias, rather than the raw

that these comparable number of interactions arenumbers, the percentages of the interactions for

actually made to groups of ≈ 51 thousand and ≈ 4each year were analyzed.

thousandpeople,respectively.

Therefore,

The findings support the previous researchnormalizing the number of interactions to eachthat suggests strong echo chambers in thegroup with respect to the size of the target groupfragmented political groups, such as the very

provides a clear evidence that the interactions

recent one demonstrating the inevitability of

towards expanding the public sphere are made toecho chambers (Sasahara (2019)).

the individuals who are following two groups, -in

One of the shortcomings of retrieving existingother words, the individuals who constitute adata from Twitter is that due to official requests

bridge between ideological fragmented groups

by governments, Twitter may be deleting somethrough selective exposure. From the same pointof the tweets or suspending accounts, leading toof view, as the size of TGB is almost four times ofimperfections in the analyses or even biasing the

CHP, Figures 3 and 4 can be re-interpreted:
Regarding the interactions from the subset Cs toresults. As a matter of fact, Turkish Government

T in Figure 3, the size of the target group T is four

Twitter the most. However, one can expect thattimes of the size of C. However, regarding theinteractions from the subset Ts to C in Figure 4,

the deleted tweets are actually the sharpest

the size of the target group C is one fourth of theforming and reinforcing echo chambers but also

size of T.

to polarization and extremism. This could bias

is one of the countries requesting removals frompolitical ones, contributing not only to the

In summary, taking into account the size of thethe results in the favor of weakening the echotarget group in each interaction, these resultschambers. Therefore, our interpretation is thatsuggest that although TGB has a narrower

having access to the deleted tweets could lead toideological line than CHP, the echo chamber ofmore accurate results showing even stronger

TGB may be considered as comparable to that ofecho chambers. On the other hand, rather than

CHP, emphasizing a rational deliberative. This

the existing ones, retrieving tweets via live

can be linked to the independent nature of TGB,

streaming could catch the tweets before they are

rather than being the official extension of adeleted. This method has the drawback ofpolitical party.

technical and practical difficulties in the process,especially for the studies spanning several years.

5. Discussions

A basic issue in analyzing data retrieved fromsocial network sites such as Twitter especially inIn this study, the interactions of the targeted

political conversations is the existence offollowers were analyzed by retrieving up to last

automated accounts, due to their impact in

3200 tweets of each follower in a 3-years periodmanipulating the conversations (see Ferrara et28

Journal of Socio-Informatics Vol. 14 No. 1 Sep. 2021

al. (2016); Shao et al. (2018); Vosoughi, Roy andsense that the followers of AKP are more

Aral (2018)). In order to eliminate the impact ofconservative than the followers of CHP or TGB,

automated accounts, twe applied a filtering as

and more conservative individuals tend to form

explained in the Method section.

stronger political echo chambers in the US case

The motivation behind the study on echo(see Boutyline and Willer (2016)). What is more,chambers is that more than reinforcing thefollowers of AKP are usually less educated (seeideologies, political discussions among like-Uncu

minded individuals drive the fragmented groups

influenced easier than others by politicalto extreme ideologies (Sunstein (2001)). In order

discussions, which potentially increases the levelto grasp the strength of echo chambers not onlyof homophily, forms and reinforces echo

at an arbitrary time, but actually the evolution ofchambers leading to group polarization (seeit in the long term, our method is to focus on a

Sasaki (2016)).

(2018)).

Less

educatedpeoplearespecific 3-year period in which Turkey had

TGB is found to have a slightly stronger echo

intense political experiences and it is widelychamber than CHP. However, taking into accountbelieved that the political polarization among

the size of the target set of interactions in a more

people has increased sharply.

detailed analysis, the strength of the echochambers of TGB and CHP becomes comparable.

6. Conclusions

On the contrary to the followers of AKP and CHP
who have a wide spectrum of ideologies, theThe purpose of this article is to contribute tofollowers of TGB has a strictly narrow and well

the debate on online political fragmentation anddefined ideology. Therefore, despite its narrower

echo chambers, by investigating the dynamics ofpolitical line, having a much weaker echo

echo chambers among the followers of threechamber than AKP and only a slightly stronger

largest political youth groups of Turkey between

one than CHP can be interpreted as a consequence

2016 and 2018. In particular, these groups areof being not an official party organization but an

studied in two classes. The first class consists of

independent organization. This result emphasizes

the official youth organizations of ruling party

the role of independent political organizations

AKP (Justice and Development Party) and main

towards a stronger democracy.

opposition party CHP (Republican People’s

When it comes to the dynamics of echo

Party). The second class consists of the largest

chambers, in the period that Turkey had harsh

independent political group TGB (Youth Union ofpolitical experiences including a failed coup

Turkey). Retrieving over 40 million tweets of a

attempt, and political polarization among thecarefully selected 30 thousand followers of thesepeople is believed to become sharper, nogroups, 5.5 million interactions (Retweets,

significant change of echo chambers is found.

Retweets with Comment, Replies) were analyzed.

The only small-scale exception is through theAmong these fragmented groups, strong echo

individuals following not one but two groups,

chambers were found, by far the strongest in theexperiencing a deliberative cross-ideologicalruling party AKP. This finding supports the

exposure.

previous research focusing in the US case in theThis work focused on the fragmentation and29

Fragmentation and Dynamics of Echo Chambers of Turkish Political Youth Groups on Twitter

OZAYDIN et al

the dynamics of echo chambers of political youth

political echo chambers: Variation in ideologicalgroups in Turkey. To the best of our knowledge,

homophily

this is the first work in the field to focus on

Psychology, 38(3), 551-569

inonlinenetworks.

Political

political youth groups. Our results favor the side

Boxell L, Gentzkow M, Shapiro, JM (2017) Greaterof the debate that online political discussions leadInternet use is not associated with faster growth into strong echo chambers and polarization. In

political polarization among US demographic

addition, previous research is supported thatgroups. Proceedings of the National Academy ofcross-ideological exposure lead to weakening

Sciences, 114(40): 10612-10617

echo chambers, contributing to the favoring of

Bright J (2018) Explaining the Emergence of Politicaldemocracy. Because each country has specific

Fragmentation on Social Media: The Role ofcultural and political aspects, we believe that

Ideology and Extremism. Journal of Computer-future works on other countries could contributeMediated Communication 23: 17-33

to provide a more insightful perspective for the

Budak C, Duncan JW (2015) Dissecting the spirit ofdebate whether the Internet is leading to echo

Gezi: Influence vs. selection in the Occupy Gezi

chambers of fragmented groups or to an

movement. Sociological Science 2: 370-397

expanded public sphere.

Casteltrione

I(2014)

Facebook

and

Political

Information in Italy and the UK: An Antidote

Acknowledgements

against Political Fragmentation and Polarisation?

SYO thanks to Fatih Ozaydin for fruitful technical

Online Journal of Communication and Media

discussions.

SYO

acknowledges

Tokyo

Tech

Technologies 4(1): 27-49

Tsubame Scholarship.

Colleoni E, Rozza A, Arvidsson A (2014) Echo
Chamber or Public Sphere? Predicting Political

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