Netizens on Hagia Sophia’s Conversion Policy: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Rapid advancement of technology has attracted the world’s attention and has changed the situation, mainly for social media users’ reactions on issues such as the news of the conversion of hagia sophia from a museum to a mosque. with all the changes in the advent of online news, which can be read, circulated on social media directly and commented on by its readers, netizens can write and share ideas in no time to respond to shared news. this research investigates netizens’ attitudes based on ideological friction visible in netizens’ comments to hagia sophia’s conversion policy. data are netizens’ online comments in response to the news of the conversion of hagia sophia status from a museum to a mosque circulating on social media, especially instagram, facebook, and youtube, taken in 2020. data collection is done by selecting social media accounts related to hagia sophia’s conversion that have approval and disapproval comments on the policy, classified according to the spectrum of netizens’ reactions based on ideological friction evident in each word written. analysis is done using the linguistic resources of language ideology in netizens’ comments, specifically using appraisal theory related to attitude (martin and white [2005]. the language of evaluation: appraisal in english. palgrave macmillan). then, all data are analysed based on critical discourse analysis (fairclough [1989]. language and power. longman) with description, interpretation and explanation models. the analysis indicates that netizens’ attitudes show three spectrums of ideological friction categorized into netizens’ attitudes in political, historical and religious frictions. the various netizens’ attitudes in a discourse contain hidden ideologies reflected through language use in comments.