The development of internet and social media usage in Turkey

Turkey which has a young population is a country which adopts to major technology developments quite swiftly as verified by the rapid and huge increase in the number of Facebook and Twitter users (as well as other social media platforms in a very short period of time. At urban places almost 90 percent use online news at least once a week.

On the other hand it is observed that much of the usage of social media for news is likely to be driven by a relatively low level of trust in traditional media. In urban Turkey 45 per cent of respondents stated that they do not think that news provided by traditional media is not reliable.

As for usage of social networks in Turkey Facebook is observed to be dominating by 30 million accounts followed by Twitter used by 6,5 million accounting for 17 percent of the population, majority to be in major cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

There are 70 million mobile telephone subscriptions in Turkey with about 35 percent that have access to mobile broadband. On the other hand it is forecasted that about 30 per cent of the total population have access to smartphones. This has obviously enhances importance of mobile-driven social media services.

Considering the nature of these platforms, and governmental pressure to control mainstream social media channels, it’s seems quite meaningful that WhatsApp is already a popular source for news, discussion and information sharing among some audiences in Turkey.

Go to link for further reading TECHNOLOGY / SOCIAL MEDIA IN TURKEY