Reflection of Anti-Racist Protests on Social Media: The Case of Barack Obama

Abstract

Media, economy, politics and social events play a direct role in the transformation of a regionally occurring event into a global event. Accordingly, Twitter plays an effective role in changing and transforming events. The murder of George Floyd in Minnesota on May 25, 2020; The impact of anti-racist rhetoric and protests in the context of media, economy and politics have been discussed. The tweets of former US political leader on Twitter between May 25 and June 25 were analyzed within the framework of the critical discourse analysis method. The first tweet on the events occurred on 29 May 2020 and the last tweet occurred on 16 June 2020. Ten tweets about anti-racism and protests were shared between these dates. As a result of, the former president of the US has used a positive and encouraging language. It was determined that young people in protests raised their voices against injustice.

Keywords

• discourse analysis
• twitter
• racism
• barack obama
• protest