Elm və İnnovativ Texnologiyalar Jurnalı Nömrə 13, 2020. 12- 30 DOI: 10.30546/2616-4418.13.2020.12 EFFECT OF PERCEPTION AND PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT ON PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN PUBLIC MANAGEMENT Yunus Emre KAYABAS South Russian University, Institute of Management, Business and Law, Institute of Social Sciences, Rostov-Na-Donu, Russian Federation 1. Introduction The management and being governed, which are accepted to occur with the inclusion of human beings in the world life, became the concepts that became more evident in the great positive and negative changes that occurred in the living environments of the people. People have seen that single life generally harms due to various negative conditions (natural disasters, wars, illnesses, etc.) that are experienced in the world and they started to live in communities. Social life has transformed into countries starting from the smallest unit, the family. The coexistence of individuals in these communities has brought the need for management and management concepts, and this necessity has revealed the science of management. In the occurrence of management science, the concept of manager has also taken its place as the basic concept. Managers who provide fluency, develop and control the management process are determined either by appointment or undergoing various tests in today's societies. One thing which is related with the concept and people is | www.ejsr.org 12 Effect of Perception and Perception Management …. 13 led by leader. In this frame, what is anticipated from individuals who are administrators in the dimension of time is the fact that they can lead and manage their societies or the perceptions of people under their leadership while leading. In perception management; the main purpose is to dominate the minds of societies or people and to direct those who practice this method to their main aims and to contemplate like them. This method, which has been used consciously or unconsciously in state management and theological activities since ancient times, has been used in all fields, especially international diplomacy, in recent years. Sometimes it is used to break the self-confidence of the other side, sometimes to attract the people that are addressed to their ranks, and sometimes to guide people or communities. In which of the field it is used, it is thought to have positive results for those using this method as an effective management policy on people or communities. It is because it appears as an undeniable reality that perception always acts in front of the facts. In the application of this method, mind control techniques are also used effectively in recent years with the effect of social media tools and developments in the field of psychology, besides written and visual media. Perception management has emerged as a form of management that is frequently used in political and social engineering studies in recent years. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of perception management on societies or people in the public, internal public idea of countries and international diplomacy. Since the study is an empirical study, in this study, the events that will be searched for the literature and the monitored observations will be benefited. In this article, perception management, which is extremely important for people and states, will be examined in detail. In this context; Perception stages, perception and perception concepts will be examined, then the relationship between public diplomacy and perception management will be mentioned. With the theoretical knowledge that is obtained in the study will attempt to put forward the issue of how Turkey can benefit positively in public diplomacy. Perception and Perception Management Perception management was first used by units within the U.S. Ministry of Defense. The US Ministry of Defense has been described as follows: Perception management, by directing the selected flow of information and concrete documents to ensure that foreigners, including intelligence units and leaders at all levels, take action and take official steps in line with their (US) goals or by denial, all the actions conducted to try to dominance the feelings, motivations, and thought systems of the masses. Perception management is a combination of factors such as mirroring facts, ensuring operational security, hiding and distorting reality, and managing psychological operations, using a variety of ways. Perception management based on this definition; includes all the activities performed out to influence the opinions of the target audience in foreign countries (Saydam, 2005). | www.ejsr.org 14 Yunus Emre KAYABAS Today's individuals feel the need to understand, explain and interpret the events that occur in the world in which they live. The main reason for this need is that people cannot be insensitive to the differences that occur in their environments. They try to adapt to the environment by understanding the reasons for the changes, basically with the effect of their survival (Agarwal, 2009: 4). In addition to this, if individuals cannot understand these changes in their environment and adapt to these changes, they may be faced with mental illness by staying between change and inability to understand the events. This situation may negatively affect the harmony of people with the environment they live in (Hogg & Vaughan, 2005: 104). Because of these reasons, people have constantly tried to provide explanations about events, facts and behaviors that will fully satisfy themselves. The individual investigates events, facts, people and behaviors throughout his life and creates permanent or temporary mental perceptions about them. In fact, the person is investigating the causes entirely. When it reveals the causes of the changes, it can create positive or negative perceptions on other people and communities using these reasons. If the perception is positive, it is easier for the individuals to adapt to the changed environments, but if the perception is desired to be negative and it is perceived negatively by the individuals, individual and social incompatibility, namely confusion, arises. In this context, the examination of the causes and targets of the events and facts in terms of controlling the positive and negative perception operations carried out on individuals and societies has become one of the most important areas of social psychology research (Gürses, 2008: 361). Since the creation of the universe, all beings interact with their environment. It defines (stimulating) the “External or internal effect, object or energy or energy change that causes the organism to react” (Göksu, 2007, p. 31). Beings create various stimuli and are subject to be exposed from other beings. Stimuli such as heat, light, sound, smell, pressure are some of the physical stimuli that cause us to make sense of our environment. In order for these stimuli to make sense for people, they must be taken and processed and associated with each other. The process of taking stimulants through sense organs and sending them to the brain is a simple process, and this process is called sensation, which is the result of sensing, the process that does not require any interpretation. Göksu (2007, p.32) defines this process as "Sensation is a simple information acquisition that occurs in the brain shell by stimulating the sense organs." While stimulant creation and exposure to stimulants apply to all entities, living organisms have specialized organs that can collect these stimuli. These organs are named as sense organs. In a healthy person; eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin gather stimulants from around and form specialized sense organs and send them to the brain. In addition to the five sense organs consisting of hearing, tasting, seeing, smelling and touching sense organs, information can be obtained from the outside world (İnceoğlu, 2004, p. 72). | www.ejsr.org Effect of Perception and Perception Management …. 15 Leaving the ages behind which power is effective by force, humanity can influence and transform social perception processes to the end with the production and use of information in recent years (İnceoğlu, 2010: 11). For this reason, in these days when the information age is experienced, the intended perception creation or perception orientation activities through perception management; governments attract nations, states, military institutions or businesses (Bakan and Kefe, 2012: 1). In fact the manageability of perceptions is an undeniable fact. It is even known that some societies are more suitable for perception management through manipulation than others (Zaman, 2007: 65).In short, like every concept that has changed over time, there have been changes in the management activities adopted by states, institutions or individuals. Instead of putting public pressure on set goals in the easiest and least harmful way, management activities have now turned into a way of persuading and arousing them towards the set goals. While people who are expected to be affected think that they act according to their own will at the end of this process, it is to make them think about it with a carefully prepared perception management activity. Public Diplomacy It is a notion that can make a wide variety of definitions on public management in relation to the definition of the concept of management being extremely comprehensive and diverse. One of these definitions is that public management is the entire process of goods and services, that is, outputs to meet the needs of citizens. In this definition, it is seen that the concept of public management assumes the task of meeting the needs of citizens. Another is the definition that the public management includes all the actions for the implementation of the provisions given by adhering to the law. According to this definition, the mechanism of public management operates between intertwined and contradictory problems. Therefore, it can be handled in two ways, functional and structural. As a functional concept, public management consists of applying general rules, namely laws and decisions taken by public policy.