Browsing by Author "Agaoglu, Erhan"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Persuasive Appeals, Thematic Content, and Affordances on TikTok: Evidence From the 2023 Turkey Presidential Elections
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Artan Ozoran, Beris; Seyidov, Ilgar; Agaoglu, Erhan
TikTok has become a central arena for political communication, especially in engaging younger voters. This study examines how Recep Tayyip Erdo & gbreve;an and Kemal K & imath;l & imath;& ccedil;daro & gbreve;lu employed TikTok during the 2023 Turkish Presidential Election by analysing 265 videos through quantitative content analysis. Rather than directly measuring voter attitudes, we focus on how leaders' use of affordances (association, editability), thematic content, and rhetorical appeals related to audience engagement (likes, comments, shares). Results show that both leaders prominently highlighted the economy and relied on pathos-driven appeals, consistent with personalization in Turkish political campaigning. Regression analyses revealed that K & imath;l & imath;& ccedil;daro & gbreve;lu's 'other' and 'law/justice' themes significantly boosted engagement, while high use of association features (hashtags and mentions) reduced it. In Erdo & gbreve;an's case, ethos and pathos appeals strongly decreased engagement, whereas logos-based messages performed relatively better. For both leaders, longer videos predicted lower engagement. These findings illustrate how affordances and persuasive strategies interact to shape engagement on TikTok.
Reconfiguring Stoicism: Convergence of Self-Improvement and Masculinity on TikTok
(Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Agaoglu, Erhan
This research examines the multimodal representations of Stoic content within TikTok. The research aimed to explore the multifaceted structure of an emerging digital philosophy discourse and its implications for contemporary socio-cultural dynamics. It explores a fragmented version of Stoicism, focussing on the affordances of algorithm-driven platforms and modularity principles. For multimodal discourse analysis, 20 highly viewed (>300,000) videos under the hashtags of #stoic and #stoicism are selected through purposeful sampling. It identifies the emergence of a fragmented Stoicism, built upon platform affordances and audio-visual modularity. Emerging themes include self-improvement, being dangerous and traditional masculinity remarking a divergence from popular and classical interpretations of Stoicism. Through these key themes, construction of an arbitrary link between hegemonic masculinity, glorified individualism and Stoicism is explored. Employing elements of aggression, self-isolation and self-improvement, TikTok content creates a novel discourse of Stoicism which is elusive, abstract, and reliant on visually driven narratives.