Nowadays, social media, which is about sharing information, experiences and perspectives, is gaining more and more importance in community-oriented websites and online environment. Social media is usually defined in the context of the previous industrial media paradigm. Unlike one-way and static broadcasting technologies such as magazines, newspapers, radio and television, which are in the traditional media category, new web technologies where everyone creates and distributes their own content are considered social media. According to Cambridge Dictionary (2019), social media is defined as websites and computer programmes that allow people to share information and communicate over the internet using a computer or mobile phone.
According to another definition, social media refers to the activities, practices, and behaviors that govern communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge, and opinions using conversational media. Conversational media, on the other hand, are web-based applications that make it possible to create and easily transmit content in the form of words, images, video and audio. It is useful to touch upon the historical process of social media, which has provided a significant change and transformation in communication, interaction and sharing opportunities, in order to evaluate the process from past to present. On the other hand, the differences of social media from traditional media and the features it has are also important in terms of conceptualization. Finally, it is necessary to draw the conceptual framework and understand the concept of social media, which tools it consists of and which features it contributes to users.
HISTORY OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Developments around the world, especially in the field of information and communication technologies, have affected the functioning of modern society. The development of information and communication technologies and the provision of effective communication and information services have changed users' expectations from modern society in different ways. The Internet has greatly transformed people's ability to access information and the way they communicate with people. With the ARPANET (American Defense Advanced Research Agency Network), which was developed as an American Military Defense Project in the late 1960s, the production of computer systems, which constitute the essence of the system and whose function is "interconnecting", began. With its development from the moment it emerged until today, the system has developed to cover almost the entire field of 'invention' in the world.
As is the case with developments in many communication fields in the world, the internet is a tool created primarily for defense and military purposes. Later, global marketing companies began to use the internet as a tool to deliver their products or services to overseas countries. In order to bring products and services to large audiences, the 1990s enabled users to benefit from this tool for communication purposes, resulting in an increase in the number of people receiving services. While these processes were going on for the Internet to become widespread, the Internet as a new mass communication tool has also undergone change and transformation. The internet database, which initially provided services based on Web 1.0, later transformed into Web 2.0 and began to offer more opportunities to its users.
