By Nikos Arvanites and Georgios Protopapas.
Ankara deadly terrorist attack – the worst in Turkey’s history- provokes sentiments of rage and sadness to the online Greek public opinion affecting the Greek-Turkish relations.
The workspaces Ankara bombing and Greek-Turkish relations gather totally, according to the tool paloPro 4.217 mentions in the Greek – speaking internet during the period between 10/10 – 12/10 2015. Ankara bombing gathers more mentions on sites and blogs and Greek-Turkish relations collect more mentions on twitter.
Ankara bombing provoked negative sentiments to the online Greek public opinion. In addition the sentiments for Greek-Turkish relations characterized by neutral sentiment, which express mostly the opinion of the Greek users of twitter.
Topics of the Greek-speaking internet
The topic of the Greek speaking internet for Ankara bombing and Greek – Turkish relations focused on the news of Ankara terrorist attack, the reactions of the Turkish government and the opposition parties and the condolences of the government of Athens:
• The support – demonstration to the Kurdish and Turkish people which organized Monday at Syndagma.
• The condolences of the President of Greek Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos to the President of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan during telephone conversation.
• The condolences of the Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, during a telephone conversation.
• The Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk accused the president Tayyip Erdogan that has “a plan against Kurds”.
• News and comments for the next day of the terrorist attacks on the fields of policy and society.
Conclusions
The quantitative and qualitative data of paloPro display that social media played a constructive role on the Greek- Turkish relations because of Ankara’s deadly terrorist attack. The grief for the victims and the rage for the terrorists put aside the traditional confrontations for a moment.
In comparison with our previous analysis for Turkey and Greek Turkey relations, we point out that the negative sentiments have dramatically reduced in our current data analysis.
Kurdish minority creates sympathy sentiments to the online Greek public opinion. On the contrary Greek social media react negatively to Turkish provocations in the Aegean Sea and Cyprus.
The qualitative data of paloPro also displays the opinion of the Greek –speaking internet for Turkish political and social developments. Greek social media believe that Turkey is entering in a period of political and social polarization in front of 1 November general elections.
