Özen Baş

Baş, Özen

Name Variants

B., Özen
Baş Ö.
Baş, O.
B., Ozen
B.,Ozen
O. Baş
Özen Baş
ÖZEN BAŞ
Ozen, Bas
Baş, Ö.
BAŞ, ÖZEN
Bas, Ozen
Bas,Ozen
BAŞ, Özen
Özen BAŞ
Ö. Baş
BAS O.
Bas,Ö.
Baş, ÖZEN
Ozen Baş
Baş, Ozen
Bas,O.
Baş, Özen
Baş,Ö.

Job Title

Dr. Öğr. Üyesi

Email Address

ozen.bas@khas.edu.tr

ORCID ID

0000-0002-8895-9704

Scopus Author ID

55387529400

Full item page

Scholarly Output

20

Articles

12

Citation Count

7

Supervised Theses

8 Scholarly Output Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 16

The influence of electronic word-of-mouth on purchasing decisions of online consumers: The case of Airbnb users in Turkey
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2020) Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
Airbnb is one of the most prominent online peer-to-peer companies in the short-term rentals business. The company works as a mediator between the host and the guest. The face-to-face interaction found in Airbnb entails more risks than other e-commerce platforms. Therefore, the heaviest burden on the company is to build trust among its users. The main goals of the study reported here are to examine the importance of online reviews found in the Airbnb, and the factors that increase the trust of the consumers in the company as well as those that impact the purchasing decision-making processes. This study gathered all the membership requirements that may motivate consumers to trust and purchase the services from Airbnb, where these requirements were never being tested altogether. The study targeted Airbnb's consumers in Turkey, who never been tested. An online survey was conducted (N=405) on Airbnb users who reside in Turkey. The results produced a significant relationship between the frequency of Airbnb use and the need to read reviews before making a purchasing decision, especially among new subscribers of Airbnb. The governmental ID was found to be the most important membership requirement which positively influenced the trust of users. Results suggested that both the review system of Airbnb and the way the platform is designed increase consumers trust and purchasing decisions. Overall, the study found that online reviews and the information found in it are important no matter where they are located, and they have a greater influence than commercial advertisements on online users' purchasing decisions in Turkey. This study contributes to enriching the academic literature on the role of eWOM as a free marketing tool. The findings also help sharing economy companies to take into consideration the crucial role of a well-designed online review system in increasing sales.
Fact-checkers and journalists' perspectives on their normative roles in Turkey
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2021) Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
In democracies, people should have access to factual and healthy information to make wise collective choices for the common good. However, the circulation of misinformation hinders citizens' capacity to access factual information. Various problems of the Internet age, such as online disinformation, echo chambers, or bots, are dismantling the Internet's function as a democratic and inclusive public sphere, highlighting the threatening power of online communication technologies in determining the fate of democracies. The fact-checking ecosystem has started to grow globally as a new global democratic practice since the early 2000s to increase the disinformation resilience of societies and democracies and to combat the circulation of false information. Although the fact-checking ecosystem is growing worldwide, very little research has been done in Turkey investigating the perceived roles, responsibilities, and challenges of journalists and fact-checkers concerning each other. This study investigates how journalists and fact-checkers perceive their roles in their societies and how they make sense of their existence as a profession. In devising strategies to make fact-checking initiatives more credible, popular, and influential among different user groups, the first step would be to analyze media professionals' perceptions towards each other's roles. Moreover, this study is also the first step in learning about possible areas of collaboration between traditional media and relatively new fact-checking initiatives. However, this study finds that journalists are suspicious of and distant to fact-checking platforms in Turkey since journalists were too defensive of their professional roles as arbiters of truth. Thus, there is still much work to be done in Turkey to increase the conversation among fact-checkers and journalists, especially to prevent the perception of the fact-checking organizations as a new form of infotainment style news or a new source of censorship.
Citation Count: 0
Nationwide research on the uses and motivations of dating apps by young adults in the cultural environment of Turkey
(Sage Publications inc, 2023) Audry, Aylin Sunam; Baş, Özen; İnceoğlu, İrem; Cöbek, Gözde; Cobek, Gozde; Alkurt, Saygin Vedat
Since Tinder's worldwide popularity, location-based dating apps have become widespread. The existing literature mainly focuses on a single app in European and US contexts and pays little attention to other cultural contexts. This paper addresses this gap by examining dating app choices and motivations of young adults (18-29 years old) in Turkey. It examines the intersectionality of socio-demographic variables in a cultural setting that is quite different not only from European and US contexts but also from other Muslim-majority contexts. Deriving from the nationally representative survey (n = 1,498), our research finds statistically significant differences in dating app preferences and adults' motivations regarding location, sexual, gender, and religious identities. This study underlines the crucial role of cultural geography and its social fabric in mobile dating, even within the same national setting.
Challenges and opportunities granted to Arab women by social media during the political upheavals between 2011 and 2018
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2020) Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
Starting with 2011, the so-called Arab Spring threatened the authoritarian leaders in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, enabling protesters to mobilize others to their cause and provide an effective tool for self-expression. The use of social media changed the demographic makeup of social movement participants in many countries. Of particular interest is the mobilization of women both online and offline. Literature have previously examined the impact of the use of social media during Arab Spring generally, with a clear gap on the participation of women in social movements and a clear absence of theoretical base for past findings. This study employs a qualitative approach to understand how the Arab Spring shaped the political use of social media by activist women. This study contributes to the literature by investigating the extent of political engagement of Arab women online, most notably during the Arab Spring upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria. Thirteen Arab activist women were interviewed on their use of social media in efforts to facilitate social change. The interviews aimed to explore the effects of Arab Spring revolution on women's participation in social media and contextualize the opportunities that social media provided to empower Arab women in political participation through the cultural, technical, as well as political affordances. In addition, the threats Arab women faced as a result of engaging in social media before, during, and after the Arab Spring period are investigated. Results indicate that social media encouraged Arab activist women to be involved in the social movements where they demanded their political rights. However, women's active (online and offline) political participation also led to social media bans, violations of their privacy as well as arrests and banishments.
Citation Count: 3
Use of Social Media in the Struggle Surrounding Violence Against Turkish Women
(University of Southern California, 2020) Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
Increasingly large numbers of women in Turkey have suffered abuse or lost their lives through attacks by men. In 2019 alone, 474 women were killed by men. Based on theories of connective action and affective publics, this study examines online activism regarding violence against Turkish women through a qualitative content analysis of Twitter messages with popular hashtags. Posts addressing six different cases of violent crimes directed at women that took place between 2015 and 2019 constituted the sample. The results show that large numbers support women through postings and repostings of solidarity, emotional expressions, remembrance, and dissemination of information. Because of the government's authoritarian and repressive tactics in silencing critical voices on social media and in the streets, the potential to build an organized social movement to curtail these violent crimes is minimal.
Citation Count: 1
An analysis of social media content shared by right-wing extremist groups in the United States, the Great Britain and Australia
(Istanbul Univ, Fac Communication, 2023) Baş, Özen; Bas, Ozen
The extreme right movements have increasingly appeared on social media, especially on Twitter and Facebook, coinciding with the 2019 New Zealand attack, the 2019 El Paso incident, and Britain's exit from the European Union in 2020. This study examines the content and the form of extreme right-wing activities on Facebook and Twitter to promote their ideologies. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on posts shared by extreme-right groups on public Facebook and Twitter accounts in Great Britain, the United States and Australia. The sample spans from March 15, 2019 to February 5, 2020. The posts were coded according to a coding instrument developed based on the existing literature spreading extremist ideologies on social media. The coding instrument consisted of categories and subcategories such as 'the protection of western values', 'anti-LGBT activism', 'anti-feminism', 'anti-Islam', 'anti-immigrant sentiments', 'fostering the white race', and 'anti-elitist populism'. Findings suggest that the most prevalent extremist ideologies on Facebook and Twitter posts were 'anti-elitist populism' and 'the protection of western values'. Also, extremist groups heavily shared posts that combined texts and images to spread their ideologies on social media.
From sexual harassment against women in business life to cybersexual harassment in professional platforms: A study on digitalization of workplace harassment against white-collar women
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2022) Kocabaşoğlu, Özge Nur; Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
Sexual harassment against women is one of the important social problems addressed all over the world. It is a fact that has existed for hundreds of years, although the place and types of it change. Harassment has been transferred to the digital environment, as everything has become digital with the Internet. It is claimed that women are subjected to harassment while working or looking for a job. To investigate the prevalence of workplace harassment and harassment on online platforms used for professional purposes and its psychological effects on victims, an online nonprobability sampling survey on 249 white-collar women aged 20-40 working in the private sector was conducted. According to results of the study, harassment that women are most exposed to is cyber harassment. It has been observed that 73 women out of every hundred have been subjected to harassment on professional digital platforms. In the types of harassment experienced; persistent online dating requests, receiving unwanted romantic messages, sexual jokes and insults are the most common types of harassment. Considering the effects experienced, it is seen that the violence and harassment online, compared to offline harassment, does not mean that it has milder effects on the victims. It has been revealed that the psychological and physiological effects of physical abuse are also seen in victims of cyber harassment.
Citation Count: 0
Multimodal online dissident culture in Instagram: A critique of the Turkish economy
(Sage Publications inc, 2024) Baş, Özen; Bas, Ozen
Ever-present mass surveillance has blocked the flourishing of a traditional dissident culture in Turkey. Focusing on popular 'just for fun' Instagram accounts during the lira's freefall that began in the autumn of 2021, this study seeks to identify the creative strategies for digital social resistance embedded in multimodal content sharing of posts, which are composed of visuals, text, and sound. For this, we employed a multimodal-type analysis of Instagram posts regarding Turkey's economic crisis, followed by an interpretative content analysis aiming to (1) identify, categorize, and compile a typology of the main countersurveillance strategies inherent in multimodal posts, such as memes, edited videos, and animations, Photoshop-crafted still images, and (2) explore the contextual traits of the connected dissident culture. We discuss how these multimodal-type posts support connected dissident group formation while maintaining confidentiality while criticizing governmental conduct of economic policy making in Turkey.
The effect of COVID-19 news fatigue and news avoidance on the precautionary measures taken by people in Saudi Arabia Suudi Arabistan'daki insanlar tarafından alınan önlemlerde KOVİD-19 haber yorgunluk ve haberlerden kaçınma etkisi
(Kadir Has Üniversitesi, 2021) Baş, Özen; Baş, Özen
The Covid-19 pandemic was not only a health crisis but a communication crisis at the same time in almost every part of the world that happens after the first infection was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Covid-19 pandemic's media coverage throughout the world played a fundamental role in expanding this situation through the intensity of ill-studied media treatments of the pandemic and its effects, which leads news consumers to feel news fatigue. This fatigue happened due to the psychological impact of exposure to negative Covid-19 News among the news consumers, thus avoiding Covid-19 News as a protective procedure entirely. The study investigated the relationship between Covid-19 news fatigue and Covid-19 news avoidance of people in Saudi Arabia and the effects of each on the level of precaution taken towards Covid-19, during the curfew imposed by the government of Saudi Arabia, which began on 23 March until 21 June 2020, and during the vaccination stage, which started on 16 December 2020 until the end of April 2021. A survey on 362 residents of Saudi Arabia was conducted. No relationship was found between news fatigue and news avoidance during the vaccine stage. However, there was a significant relationship between them during the curfew stage. News fatigue had a positive effect on the level of precaution towards Covid-19 during the curfew. However, the effect was more substantial in the vaccine stage when the vaccine was available, representing a potential solution to this pandemic. News avoidance has a negative effect on the level of precaution towards Covid-19, during the curfew and the vaccine stages. However, the effect was more pronounced in the vaccine stage. This study shows that news avoidance and news fatigue are two distinct constructs, and they differently affect the precautionary behavior of individuals during times of crisis.
Citation Count: 0
Türkiye’de Genç Yetişkinlerin Sosyal Medya Kullanımları ve Paylaşım Türlerinin İncelenmesi
(2023) İnceoğlu, İrem; Cöbek, Gözde; Baş, Özen; Alkurt, Saygın Vedat; Baş, Özen; Sunam, Aylin
Bu çalışma, Türkiye’deki 18-29 yaş aralığındaki gençlerin hangi sosyal medya platformlarını kullandıklarına, ne kadar sıklıkla kullandıklarına ve bu platformlarda ne tarz içerikler paylaştıklarını incelemektedir. Literatüre katkı olarak, gençlerin sosyal medya kullanım pratiklerinin, paylaşım türlerinin ve motivasyonlarının sosyodemografik özelliklerle (cinsel kimlik, yaş, yaşanılan yer, sosyoekonomik statü, eğitim seviyesi ve dinî kimlik) ilişkisini araştırmaktadır. Türkiye’nin 12 ilinde yaşayan gençlerle gerçekleştirilen yüz yüze anket çalışmamızın (N=1537) bulgularına göre, en çok kullanılan sosyal medya platformları sırasıyla Instagram, YouTube ve Twitter’dır. Bulgular, bir zamanlar gençlerin yoğunlukla kullandığı Facebook’un popülerliğini yitirmeye başladığını ortaya koymaktadır. Gençlerin öğrencilik durumları, sosyoekonomik statüleri, yaşadıkları il ve cinsel kimlikleri ile sosyal medya tercihleri arasında anlamlı bir ilişki gözlemlenmektedir. Ayrıca cinsel kimlik, dinî görüş, sosyoekonomik statü, öğrencilik durumu ve yaşanılan il ile sosyal medyaya paylaşılan içerik türleri arasında anlamlı bir ilişki bulunmaktadır. Çalışmamız, ulusal ve uluslararası çalışmaların bulgularını kısmen doğrulamakta ve önemli farklılıklar ortaya koymaktadır. Türkiye’deki genç yetişkinlerin sosyal medya pratiklerine dair güncel bir veri sunmaktadır.