A New Creative Culture Example: The Case of the ‘What will be Happen News Bulletin’ in North Cyprus

The aim of the current study is to explore the conceptual development of trolling behavior and creative culture on new media in the North Cyprus especially on the 2015 Presidential Election. Cyprus presents a unique opportunity for the investigation of creative language and related issues due to its vibrant and unevolved media systems. Currently, there is no comprehensive study that incorporates the conceptual development of trolling culture in North Cyprus political communication in general. This study is also significant for application of the trolling culture in North Cyprus political communication as an election campaign strategy during the horse-race periods. In total, 23 videos were coded according to codebook with regard to creative language and the characteristics of trolling behavior. In order to provide a conceptual definition of the meaning of troll culture for Turkish Cypriots small survey was conducted by 100 Cypriots. The present data suggests that What Will Be Happen News Bulletin 2015 Presidential Election videos in YouTube channel demonstrated higher creative culture examples, which represent classical trolling behavior. The analysis of small survey and content-analysis suggest that the Mehmet Ekin Vaiz was unique due to being the first application of Turkish Cypriot political communication is adopting a classical trolling behavior in 2015 Presidential Election.


INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of the 21 st century, different forms of communication techniques on the internet have created the basis for the emergence of new forms of communication with the need for the added qualities of the mobile communication, such as digitality, interactivity, multimedia formality, hypertextuality, diffusion and virtuality (Binark & Löker, 2011;Park, 2017;Silverstone, 1999;Straubhaar, et al., 2011;Ziani, et al., 2018). Although each of these attributes has different meanings and offers innovations to its users, the basic partnership of all of them is to enable user-based content production. In particular, by switching from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 technology, users are not only accepted as the consumer of information but also they are actively engaged in the producing process. Meikle's (2016) points out that social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) are used for multidimensional purposes. Therefore, it is true to mention that these social networks are both inter-personal and public communication tools. Here, it is vital to add that social networks are becoming most effective political communication tools as well. Also, Meikle (2016) criticizes that social networks since these social networks are used to make all personal information transparent. Nowadays, we are confronted with the fact that with non-professional creativity-based content media production and sharing. Therefore, these shares create new business opportunities for who are interested with creativity practices on social networks (Meikle, 2016, p. 17). Thus, these new trends in social media sharing has started to be used by different social network users profiles', which lately creates the new phenomena of creative culture known as 'trolling'.
In this study, the case of the 'What Will Be News Bulletin' of Mehmet Ekin Vaiz has examined as a first example of the practicing creative culture among social networks in North Cyprus. The case of 'What Will Be News Bulletin' has chosen since Mehmet Ekin Vaiz has used the creative language practices under the name of tolling and it is the first application of the trolling culture into North Cyprus political communication by reporting the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election issues. In this sense, this study significantly based on the two rounds of 2015 Presidential Election of North Cyprus, which first round had been held on 19 th of April and the second round had been held on 26 th of April 2015.
In the light of this information, the 23 videos of 2015 Presidential Election that are published in Mehmet Ekin Vaiz's social network accounts under the name of 'What Will Be Happen News Bulletin' (Facebook and YouTube) used to elaborate creative language practices and the application of the trolling culture in North Cyprus political communication.
The aim of the study is to reveal what kind of a trolling practices are available in the application of trolling culture in North Cyprus political communication. Therefore, 'What Will Be Happen News Bulletin' is undertaking in order to investigate whether the publications have taken a critical and dissident view of the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election with addressing the creative language practices that are fed from humor. In this way, it has examined whether the trolling culture, accepted as a product of creative culture, has developed a critical approach to current political situations. For this purpose, the videos are evaluated by using the content-analysis technic based on the structured codebook. There is one main research question that this study seeks to answer, which is:  Bishop (2014) describes the new social network jargon of troll as a technique of deceiving the enemies that has been used by US Army's soldiers in 1960s. Similarly, Taiwo (2014) defines trolling as a conscious act of provocation of collective event of certain societies. On the other hand, according to Coleman (2012, p. 110) the aim of trolling behaviors is to provide harmful and inaccurate information of not only persons but also institutions, which she supports that in this way trolls destroy persons' and institutions' public reputations.
Moreover, Coleman (2012) emphasizes that trolls are often hide their identity in order to attack these persons and institutions. As they are hidden their identity behind the masks, Ozsoy (2015) criticizes trolls as assessing the abusive, sexist, discriminatory, racists and destructive discourse in the social networks. By accepting the trolls as a way of thinking internet subculture tragedy, it is often deceiving and manipulating other users by hiding their identity by subjecting them to false and biased information, or sharing their thoughts in order to criticize social problems by a critical point of view. In the light of this information, troll accounts could be accepted as a personal brand creation which is benefited from the social networks.
Furthermore, Goffman (2014) explains that trolls present themselves as an artist who has exhibition of themselves on the stage. Moreover, Bishop (2014) emphasizes two opposing trolling behavior categories, which are classical trolling (for entertainment purposes) and anonymous trolling (for provocative purposes). To begin with the classical trolling, it is true to say that while classical trolls aim to communicate with other people through social networks, anonymous trolls aim to destroy the communication and relationships between the social networks users.
At this point, when we look at both opposing categories of trolling behaviors especially in North Cyprus, it is observed that in Turkish Cypriot society the classical trolling examples are much more than the anonymous trolling ones. As Karatas and Binark, (2016, p. 434) point out that the troll accounts in social networks try to establish a link between creative culture and creative language mostly as a means of entertainment purposes. In this sense, trolls offer significant contributions to creative culture through language and discourses that they have distributed through social networks. Thus, the most prominent feature of the trolls is the use of creative language, which has the distinct method in order to enhance more attractive and popular sharing by using visual imaginary. To define trolls in social networks differently, it is also possible to say that trolling: is used to increase the number of followers by creative language practices and convert them into an interested people by attracting their attention mostly in the social networks.
On the other hand, Hardaker (2013) argues that unlike Bishop and Coleman's approaches to trolling, trolls consciously exhibit oppositional or aggressive behavior. Here, Hardaker compromises that trolls are often apply aggressive communication and language practices. Hardaker also draws attention to their opposing direction too. At this point, Taiwo (2014) unlike Bishop divides trolling practices into two different categories. First, trolls serve as a platform to debate social issues through making them visible. Second, trolls use to subject social debates to find their deficits and disgrace for certain social networks followers. This contrasting situations between two different categories of trolls often represent the actual appearance of political camouflages and social polarization on the Internet. In this study, trolling behaviors were dealt with the use of purely creative language practices by criticizing social problems from an opposing point of view, or by publicizing social networking issues that are not visible on the public sphere. Apart from this type of trolling behavior, there are also trolls which systematically provide hate speech as mentioned above which humiliate persons and institutions by cyberbullying. In the light of these facts, trolling practices are thought to be valuable in terms of their creative language practices based on humor which is the alternative way of questioning the current politicalsocial order and power over social networks in the form of classical trolling application.
To this extent, trolling practices through Twitter usage in Turkey, trolls and their creative direction are accepted as a comprehensive area for academic studies by drawing attention to the direction of distributing communicative action (Binark et al., 2015, p. 128). Moreover, Binark (2015) refers to his interview with Emek Cayli Rahte that trolls presented on Twitter sometimes produce aggressive content by insulting or lynching in order to criticize social issues by using creative language for issues that relate the current agenda (Binark et al., 2015, p. 128). Here, it is urgent to highlight that there are also creative language use and vocabulary, as the discursive practices of trolls include humiliating, sexist, discriminatory, profanity and insulting content. Yet, it should be noted that a significant portion of the content in which the use of humor-based creative language is dominated are swearing and male-dominated sexist language. However, humor-based oppositional approaches are created by word games are supported by the users' images', called caps (memes). Thus the use of creative language with shared visibility extents a hyper-textual level (Binark et al., 2015, p. 142).
When we examine the Turkey and North Cyprus entertainment content generating troll, their discourses' are systematically targeted a person or institutions with a critical approach. These efforts make a social issue on the agenda visible by naturalizing it with the help of the humor-based discussion. For example, the former president of Ankara Municipality Melih Gökçek has been criticized by some of troll accounts for sharing his photos in front of the tank [because the date was 15 July 2016, where there was a coup attempt in Turkey] by saying 'This is better… I want to know you and see you…' (Please see Figure 1).
As Figure 1 illustrates, troll accounts share a textual expression of him with the caps and present a humor-based critical approach to his political expressions and sharing. Therefore, the opposing attitude towards Gökçek made him more visible and remarkable by these caps prepared by the troll accounts. In other words, it is crucial to discuss the power of caps that they become an important tool in communicating power not only for ruling parties but also for opposing parties at the same time in certain societies. Significantly, caps are successful in attracting the attention of interest among social networks users who have encountered thousands of messages and visual text during the day (Aktas, 2016).
Beyond just being a product of humor, trolls can be regarded as an important means of mass communication because of its convincing and destructive nature. The study entitled by 'A New Creative Culture Example: The Case of the 'What Will Be Happen News Bulletin' in North Cyprus' emphasizes that Twitter users circulation in Turkey accept caps as a creative culture products, in contrast to the negative perception that the mainstream media make the news publicly critical (Karatas & Binark, 2016, p. 445). In other words, the content produced by the trolls can provide any kind of corruption in the political arena, and the absurdity in the different cultural context in order to enable the other users' awareness and to question the common social negativities (Karatas & Binark, 2016, p. 446). Corruption and problems in the political and cultural contexts in a humorous way with the contribution of creative language can also cause these awareness problems concerning the political and cultural field in the society. Moreover, there is also another important problem of the anonymous discriminatory sharing of insults and swearing which cannot be ignored as well. In order to stop these kind problems, it is necessary to make some responses instead of ignoring these shares (Binark et al., 2015, Rogers (1995 mentions that massive interactive ability of new media. Moreover, interactions in new media environments are different from traditional media interactions. It is generally assumed that there is a one-way communication in traditional media environments, however, this approach is not entirely correct, since interactions in traditional media environments is achieved through a number of feedback channels (Geray, 2003, p. 18). With the mass-unification feature, the user can share content with one person or with millions of people at the same time (Geray, 2003, p. 18-19). Critically, Martin (2016, p. 26) express that "For citizens in many countries, mobile media have become increasingly popular and important outlets for political communication, including exchanges through social networking sites, political news consumption, texting social contacts about politics, and mobilizing political protests..." It is not necessary for the user to be able to access a message sent to him at the same time, either in the place where the message is sent or at the place where the message is reached (Ozinanir, 2009, p. 12). According to Silverstone (1999), new media environments have features such as digital convergence, many-to-many communication, virtuality, interactivity, and globalization. Interactions and globalist issues are also present in different forms of communication before new media environments have been emerged. On the other hand, Torenli (2005, p. 94-96) mentions that the capabilities of the new communication technologies mentioned above increase the performance and networking capabilities of the systems, as the costs increases and performance improves, as technological integration accelerates, portability becomes widespread, ease of use becomes easier.
Although new communications technologies have important and advantageous qualities such as widespread portability, speed of technological integration, cost reduction and ease of use, most of the world still does not have access to new communication technologies. According to the results of the research conducted in 2016 in order to measure the rate of internet use worldwide, the internet usage rate is limited to 3.4 billion people (Ayvaz, 2016). This conclusion proves the problems people have in accessing the new communication technologies mentioned above. In addition, opportunities to access new communication technologies show a decreasing tendency from developed capitalist countries to less developed countries (Ozinanir, 2009, p. 13).

More from a Social Network: YouTube
Although YouTube is known as the first video sharing network, it is thought that shareyourworld.com, which was originally launched in 1997, is the first video sharing network. The site of shareyourworld.com which allows users to upload and share videos like YouTube, did not survive because of the lack of internet speed of the time (Woog, 2008, p. 9). PayPal had been established in November 2005 by three former employees were Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, was a network-based banking system, YouTube attracted Google's attention due to its short-term intense interest and was purchased by Google in 2006 (Lister, et al., 2009, p. 225).
YouTube serves as a multi-dimensional internet platform when compared to other social networks; such as publishing platform, media archive, and social network. YouTube's social networking differs from popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter by allowing users to upload and share videos and other users to like, comment on, and follow. Thus user-to-user interpretations allow users to interact with each other. With Google's purchase of YouTube, all Google accounts have become available for YouTube starting in 2012. As all Google users are also YouTube users at the same time, YouTube's number of registered users has increased and the number of video contents on the site have been also enlarged.
With the increasing use of mobile internet, YouTube has become a commercial and political space rather than just uploading a self-video and videos from others. Users earn money based on the number of impressions, and they have benefited from the ads they receive in the original video content that they publish. Today, there are thousands of users who became YouTube phenomena everywhere in the world, and they earn from their YouTube ads. The vast majority of these people who become phenomena are also recognized by video blogs (abbreviated as Vblog), which are called online video diaries.
The concept of Vblogger is also used to describe people who have video blogs. When we look at YouTube's political landscape, it is known that various users have been circulating YouTube through critically, aggressively, and even irrelevant video content targeting countries, leaders, ruling and opposition parties. In this case some countries are against them which has repeatedly blocked access to YouTube where Turkey is located. The first block in Turkey, was made because of the video uploaded to YouTube on March 3, 2007 containing insulting Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The International Licensing Service, located in central Germany, removed access to the site on October 30, 2010 (Wikipedia, 2017) with the removal of relevant videos on the application to YouTube to buy and remove copyrighted videos that insult Ataturk.

In this study, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz's What Will Be Happen News Bulletin videos on
YouTube are both for political aspect criticizing the political system and politicians in the North Cyprus, and the growing interest in video over time. These videos have two important characteristics of YouTube content can have it.

Conceptualization of Trolling and Troll Culture
In the light of this information, the following research question is going to be tested:

RQ1: Did Mehmet Ekin Vaiz's 'What Will Be Happen News Bulletin' practice an application of 'trolling culture in political communication' during the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election?
The aim of this research is to examine how the Mehmet Ekin Vaiz's What Will Be Happen News Bulletin is accepted as an application of trolling behavior in North Cyprus political communication. The main subjects of interest are the 2015 Presidential Election in North Cyprus and political actors, matters of troll culture, representations about the candidates engaged in the election, position vis-à-vis the trolling. We sought answer to question related to the approaches and position the trolling and troll culture, and their views as these are expressed in videos, or that transpire between the lines as hidden or implied meanings. We are interested in features indicating trolling in social media more precisely YouTube.
The object of our study is mixed approach method between media content-analysis of online videos in combination with survey (Alexander, et al., 2008;Ciftci, 2014). We will accomplish this through an attempt to understand and analyze the practices implemented by Mehmet Ekin Vaiz What Will Be Happen News Bulletin in his selection and presentation of candidates and the concept of 'trolling' application. Observations and analysis are based solely on the actual material published on Mehmet Ekin Vaiz What Will Be Happen News Bulletin YouTube Channel. Moreover, the content is examined to derive its substance and implied meaning, which could enable us to anticipate or make corollaries as to its effects. Thus, our research is applied social media content analysis to a limited extent.

Data Collection
The majority of videos during the pre-election period consisted of short videos about the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election candidates and their campaigning strategies occupied on YouTube channel and also Facebook account of Mehmet Ekin Vaiz What Will Be Happen News Bulletin, which followed by majority of young generation.
In order to explore the videos about the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election and how What Will Be Happen News Bulletin covered the pre-election period, a content analysis coding schema has been developed. The content analysis coding schema has 10 variables related to the video contents: an evaluation of the troll; quoted candidates in the videos; the main topic of the videos; and some other technical information such as length of video, place, date and other variables. The samples selected for this study are 23 (n=23) videos from YouTube channel of What Will Be Happen News Bulletin we selected the YouTube Channel and this specific program for a number of reasons. First, What Will Be Happen News Bulletin has the highest followers in the social media and the first and unique examples for the trolling behavior, is highly influential, and supports creative language culture.

Descriptive Statistics
A total of 23 YouTube videos, (n= 23) was collected. The mean length of the videos of the 23 news items was 8.33, (SD=8.57), and was ranging from 4.43 to 12.55minutes. The mean length of the videos disseminated in What Will Be Happen New Bulletin YouTube channel was significantly higher (M= 8.64, SD=8.90) before 2015 Presidential Election in North Cyprus, than in after election (M= 7.46,SD=6.49;t (23)

RESULTS
The conception of social media shares play a role in informing environment not only for everyday issues but also for political issues. In this study, when videos were watched the application of trolling behavior in North Cyprus political communication, the majority of the video contents were in favor of the troll culture. Contrary to some speculations about trolling practices which suggested that most tended to create reaction and hatred issues (Hawkins, 2002), our results are suggested that Mehmet Ekin Vaiz What Will Be Happen News Bulletin considered his primary goal to be entertain public about the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election and its candidates.
Research question 1 (RQ1) was answered based on definition and characteristics of troll, trolling behavior and creative language culture. The 5 main characteristics are decided to use from the already existing literature (Bishop, 2014). These are as follows: -Entertainment: The idea of classical trolling was mainly based on the entertainment, which is appeared in the social media Through this entertainment process, people are communicating as well. Therefore, it is easy to say that trolling are serving the entertaining materials mostly by using social networks (Bishop, 2014).
-Creative Language and Visual Creativity: Trolls are made by creative language apparatuses, which are often visually developed.
-Humor: Trolling culture are not pleased to used bad language. Thus trolling behaviors use creative language and these creative language apply to use humor.
-Visibility: Although trolling is for entertainment, it is also played role in informing people for the public issues. Therefore, it is true to say that trolling activities helped public issues by making them visible via social networks (Taiwo, 2014).
-Legitimacy of political and cultural corruption: Trolling is legitimized the political and cultural corruption by presenting these issues humorously.
An overwhelming majority of videos (22 out of 23) showed that Mehmet Ekin Vaiz's "What Will Be Happen News Bulletin" conforms the notion of trolling culture. In each separate video he designed one scenario for each North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election candidates; that it was the first time that Turkish Cypriot social media experienced troll culture.
In trolling culture, humor plays a key role in presenting the issues through social networks. In our sample, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz consistently uses humor. In terms of using humor in videos of "What Will Be Happen News Bulletin", he presented candidates election campaigns visits by referring the film characters and superheroes as explained in Table 1. Table 1, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz used candidates' election campaign visits in his What Will Be Happen News Bulletin. By using both creative language and humor together, he artificially presented these visits. To begin with Mustafa Akinci, he preferred Smurfs Village. Then, he mentioned that Akinci and Papa Smurf will follow common act plan for Gargamel. For Eroğlu, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz selected to use Gandalff, who is the popular character of the film Lord of the Rings. Here, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz tried to highlight the candidate Eroğlu sensational statement of 'Kudret became a politician because of me'. Additionally, Hogwarts was used as an entertainment tool for mentioning the Sibel Siber election campaigns visit by Mehmet Ekin Vaiz. While all the candidates' election campaigns visits were with popular, strong characters, for Kudret Özersay's election campaign visit he picked Heidi Village. In this video, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz underlined the idea that Kudret Özersay was candidate for younger generation that if he is going to be selected, he will make a free internet connection for Heidi Village. The pictures ( Figure  2) were illustrated the above mentioned information.  Table 2 was explored the candidates' favorite games. In What Will Be Happen News Bulletin, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz supported that candidates' favorite games were the most important sign to get know the candidates well. In the light of this statement, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz presented the candidates' favorite games in the videos. For Mustafa Akıncı, he picked Angry Birds, since his party logo was a bird which was represented 'peace' in the Cyprus context. On the other hand, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz pointed out that, Derviş Eroğlu as North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election candidate plays Crash of Clans game, which is included mostly war and conquer simulations. In other words, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz favored to use this game for him, since Eroğlu and his party was representing nationalist ideologies. Furthermore, Hayday was the favorite game for the candidate Sibel Siber, which has got farm simulations. Finally, Kudret Özersay's favorite game was Fruit Ninja, which was known as adventure game. All this favorite games and candidates were matched through candidates' personality and presented to public for entertainment. Please see the Figure 3 for the illustration.

As illustrated in
On the other hand, using a creative language apparatuses are another important practices of trolling, which Mehmet Ekin Vaiz used a lot in the videos. As Table 3 shows that all statements are not only composed creative language but also produced visual creativity. For Mustafa Akıncı, he wanted to recall the idea that Akıncı was lived in USA for ten years before the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election. Therefore, he created the statement by making fun of already existing debates of Akıncı last residential issue.  For visibility, political corruption and political decay, Mehmet Ekin Vaiz in his What Will Be Happen News Bulletin created a video. In this video he used some visual creativity as well as creative language. For example, he made a video from one German Parliament debate, which includes unrelated Turkish subtitles. It is clear from the subtitles that all the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential election candidates were asked to get money from the German Parliament member. From this example, it is true to say that Mehmet Ekin Vaiz tried to make the biggest social problems of funding from the external bodies during the election periods. Similarly, another video mainly based on the interview with the citizens, which Mehmet Ekin Vaiz was called as "Opponent Citizen". In this interview video, citizens apparently talked about the bribery, that all the candidates were appealed bribery. Therefore, in the end of the video it is said that opponent citizens are going to wait until the last minute of election for bribe.
A survey was conducted by 100 (n=100) citizens, who live 7 (n=7) different cities [i.e. Karpaz, İskele, Lefke, Güzelyurt, Girne, Gazimağusa and Lefkoşa]. A majority of total answers came from the city of Lefkoşa (%72), since Lefkoşa is the capital of North Cyprus and it is also most crowded city of the island. The majority of the participants were belong to young generation [i.e. between 18 to 30] who have right to vote in North Cyprus 2015 Presidential election (%62). Significantly, in North Cyprus %88 voters follow internet to be aware of the political issues. Thus the survey results proved that internet would be accepted as a first tool for young Turkish Cypriots. Similarly, the survey results showed that the majority of the participants (%72) watched What Will Be Happen News Bulletin before the North Cyprus 2015 Presidential Election. On the other hand, Table 4 illustrates the percentage of survey participants perceptions' on troll culture characteristics of What Will Be Happen News Bulletin as discussed in the previous parts of this study. "If I won't be elected, I will come Greece instead of USA" Dervis Eroglu "Do we have more officers than the Soviets" Sibel Siber "You know I am communits, progress, change, transformation and conjecture" Kudret Ozersay "Have we not play Atari in the same period?"