ABSTRACT
Social media have brought about new means through which citizens can produce, share, and gain access to information. This chapter provides a brief overview of research on social media during political crises. While Uses and Gratification Theory has provided important insights as to how and why people use social media, less attention has been paid to the use of social media during political crises. The chapter summarises findings from two studies of social media use during the Gezi Park protests. First, findings from a survey on Twitter use during the protests and, second, results from a content analysis of blogs that citizens produced in order to share information and opinion about the protests. Both studies shed light on social media use in times of political crises. The segmentation analysis performed on Twitter users underlines the existence of four segments of Twitter users who differed in terms of key activities engaged on Twitter and information verification techniques.
