Today, the technological opportunities provided by the new media to individuals have facilitated communication and made interaction permanent, with the unity in time and space that it has created. In this interaction, the social identities of the users allowed the reactions to be expressed uncontrolled and therefore uncensored. Evaluating these uncensored expressions we see in user comments within the framework of cynicism forms the basis of this research. In terms of allowing cynical attitudes to be observed, cynicism manifests itself with its cognitive dimension, affective dimension and behavioral dimensions; As a result of the examinations based on critical, sarcastic or destructive discourses containing anger, fear, disgust, contempt, shame and pain, answers to the determined research questions were sought. In this context, while quantitative content analysis based on qualitative data was applied to the 15,245 comments reached, a descriptive analysis based on direct quotes was conducted on the post with the highest cynical attitude score in order to reveal the implementation practices of cynical attitudes. In the analysis made to describe the cynical comments made on the shared posts, the Gender Equality Instagram account, which is one of the activist groups operating in Turkey and has the highest number of followers, was followed for 16 days; It has been observed that 50.46% of the comments contain a cynical attitude, in this context, the society has a cynical attitude towards child abuse, which is one of the most non-virtuous behaviors, and the target of these attitudes are lawmakers, members of justice and other members of the society. In the context of distrust in society and state institutions, it has been observed that individuals show alienation from society, they predominantly feel anger, disgust and pain, and in the context of expression, they generally use sarcastic humor and hate-containing discourses.
Social Cynicism, Social Trust, Activism