Cagri Yalkin

Fall and redemption: Monitoring and engaging in social media conversations during a crisis

Abstract Social media content can spread quickly, particularly that generated by users themselves. This is a problem for businesses as user-generated content (UGC) often portrays brands negatively and, when mishandled, may turn into a crisis. This paper presents a framework for crisis management that incorporates insights from research on social media users’ behaviour. It looks beyond specific platforms and tools, to develop general principles for communicating with social media users. The framework’s relevance is illustrated via a widely publicised case of detrimental UGC. The paper proposes that, today, businesses need to identify relevant social media platforms, to monitor sentiment variances, and to go beyond simplistic metrics with content analysis. They also need to engage with online communities and the new influencers, and to respond quickly in a manner that is congruent with said social media platforms and their users’ expectations. The paper extends the theoretical understanding of crisis management to consider the role of social media as both a cause and a solution to those crises. Moreover, it bridges information management theory and practice, providing practical managerial guidance on how to monitor and respond to social media content, particularly during fast-evolving crises.

(Il)Legitimisation of the role of the nation state: Understanding of and reactions to Internet censorship in Turkey:

This study aims to explore Turkish citizen-consumers’ understanding of and reactions to censorship of websites in Turkey by using in-depth interviews and online ethnography. In an environment where sites such as YouTube and others are increasingly being banned, the citizen-consumers’ macro-level understanding is that such censorship is part of a wider ideological plan and their micro-level understanding is that their relationship with the wider global network is reduced, in the sense that they have trouble accessing full information on products, services and experiences. The study revealed that citizen-consumers engage in two types of resistance strategies against such domination by the state: using irony as passive resistance, and using the very same technology used by the state to resist its domination.

A Brand Culture Approach to Managing Nation‐Brands

The objective of this note is to formulate conceptual links between nation brands, international relations, and politics through the development of research questions that are underpinned by a brand-culture approach. The focus is on the export of Turkeys soap operas to diverse locations around the globe, but in particular to the Middle East and the Balkans. The note calls for: (1) forging a dialogue across international relations, political science, media, and management studies through a brand-culture lens which allows for a historical understanding; (2) focusing on historical and political discourses as resources in interpreting nation brands and cultural and creative goods; and, (3) focusing on nation branding between countries in the Global South. Forging a dialogue across disciplines and focusing on how consumers make use of historical and political discourses informs both commercial and diplomatic co-creators of nation brands.