Internet, public sphere, and democracy: The case of paid military service discussion in Ekşi Sözlük

The main problem of this study is whether Ekşi Sözlük, a web page from Turkey, can be defined as a public sphere or not according to Jürgen Habermas's public sphere concept. In this context, the theoretical aspect of the concept of the public sphere in the historical process and, the relationship between democracy and the public sphere is discussed. The relationship between the Internet and public sphere and whether the Internet produces public sphere is also discussed. Also, it is focused on the unique aspects of Ekşi Sözlük as a participatory dictionary, which is continuing its existence in Turkey. In the empirical part of the study, the comments under the title of paid military service were examined. 305 comments are examined in the context of the law on changes in Military service, some other laws, and decree law number 663, which was published in the Official Gazette on 03.08.2018 and entered into force with the law number 7146. It was concluded that 217 of these contents belong to the private sphere, 4 of them belong to the public sphere, and 84 of them belong to neither the public nor private sphere. In this context, it is thought that the public domain content of Ekşi Sözlük web site is quite low, and the content of the existing public domain is also open to discussion. Apart from this, it is concluded that there is no public sphere in the sense that Habermas idealized because of the limitation of participation as a writer in the dictionary, lack of a rational discussion environment, and deviation from the subject discussed.