The forums of internet sites as places to exchange gossip

Abstract

In Turkey, from the 1990s onwards as the internet use has become more and more widespread, people have gained the opportunity of putting the things they know into writing and share them with others on the internet thanks to the convenience provided by new technologies. With the opening of the forums, information sharing on a wide range of subjects has increased. Even if the purposes on the establishment of the forums (politics, sport, health, art, literature etc.) and their target audiences (women, men, football fans, students, clerks etc.) differ from one another, it is an undeniable fact that the forums opened by various internet sites increase the speed of information sharing. At the present day, due to their speed quality, forums also function as places to exchange gossip. Cyber media which enables its users to access thousands of people is also preferred to exchange gossip due to the fact that it increases the speed of gossip circulation. Members of the internet sites write their views by using a user's name, i.e. a nickname, so nobody has to explain anything to anyone and nobody is responsible for what s/he writes on. This also helps gossip to spread rapidly amongst people on cyber media. Throughout this study, the role of the forums of various internet sites, basically estabhshed as "the platforms of information sharing", in the transmission of the gossip as verbal culture and reproduction and the circulation speed of it will be analyzed.