Sport's Effect on Turkey's Image from the Point of Public Diplomacy

With the rapid development of communication technologies, the world is able to reach almost all worlds almost instantly and live. The fact that the public diplomacy actors keep pace with today's technology makes them an important power of states. Operating public diplomacy by using large sports organizations that people are most interested in and following is one of the priorities of many developed and developing countries. Sportive success has taken its place as an element of soft power in the international relations literature for the last 20 years and sports has become an important factor in the formation of countries' international image. In the light of this information, the aim of this study is to examine the effect of the sport as an instrument of the public diplomacy on the image of the Turkey. In this context, the Image Scale developed by G？k (2016) was applied to 394 people including sports managers, international referees, sports writers and sportsmen and coaches in various sports branches of international sports organizations. The questionnaires were analyzed and the results were evaluated. In conclusion, it appears that while persons participated in the survey express positive opinion about the image of Turkey in the view of sports facilities, the successfully hosting of international sports organizations, the possessive of the rich cultural heritages in sport field; it has been seen as a country image that sport culture and sport sciences have been able to not reach to an adequate level and it is left behind at technology level in sport field