Social Media And Political Participation In Pakistan
Loading...
Date
2018-03
Authors
Shahzad, Sobia
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Political participation is considered a key factor for well-functioning democracy. Past studies, however, suggest a declining trend of citizen participation in politics, especially among youth, in many parts of the world. Recent evidence found the popularity of social media has contributed to participatory politics as people are increasingly exposed to political news via social media. The current study develops an integrated model of social media use and political participation to test its role in promoting political participation in Pakistan. Drawing on OSOR model of Communication Mediation, the proposed model of this study elucidates that the process from social media use to political participation is not simple and direct but complex and mediated. This study introduces social capital to the Communication Mediation Model and hypothesizes the mediating effects of social capital and political expression on political participation in Pakistan. In addition, the typical political behavior in Pakistan which is often motivated by partisanship is also considered in developing the model. Partisanship is incorporated as a predisposition to social media use for news. The model was tested on youth aged between 18 and 35 (N= 800) sampled from the large population of Pakistan using a multi-stage cluster sampling. By means of survey method, data was collected using self-administered questionnaire while interviewers or enumerators were also made available to assist the process. PLS path modeling technique was used to test the model. All requirements for measurement model were met suggesting a good fit model for the current study. The variance explained for the dependent or outcome variables; online political participation (R² = 0.52) and offline political participation (R² = 0.54) indicate significant roles of social media use, partisanship, social capital and political expression in predicting political participation in Pakistan.
Description
Keywords
Social media and political participation , in Pakistan