USE OF TWITTER ON KADIK？Y AND DAT？A MUNICIPALITIES FROM THE TWO-WAY SYMMETRICAL COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK

Especially with the 2.0 period, the relationship between the Internet, social networks, the public sphere, and deliberative democracy has been intensively discussed. Within these discussions, public relations have been related with two-way symmetrical communication model that uses conducting research, listening and dialogue with the purpose of managing conflicts and developing relationships with internal and external strategic publics. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussions with the research based studies. There are currently a very limited number of researches on how municipalities use social media to carry out their duties. The purpose of this study is to understand how Twitter is used between Kad？koy and Datca municipalities and their citizens and to examine the appropriateness of the theoretical framework in terms of two-ways symmetrical communication from public relations models. When the research data are evaluated in general, it is seen that public information is provided in the institutional Twitter account of Kad？koy Municipality and the press agency/publicity model is used more in Datca Municipality. In addition to that it has been found out that both municipalities use two-ways symmetrical communication model. Datca Municipality use it more intensively, though. Understanding how municipalities use social media is important in spending resources on developing social media platforms for tax-payers and reducing problems in service delivery