The Importance Of Social Media In Politics

4. The Importance of the Current Study

The study attempts to determine the extent to which the university students gain political knowledge from using social media during the 2015 parliamentary election. It also examines the impact of social media in the production of political knowledge among participants. According to Wimmer and Dominick (2000) the knowledge of how people use a particular medium is an important step on the road to more knowledge about the development and the prospective effect of the medium. Hence, the speedy growth and popularity of social media such as Facebook, Tiwitter and YouTube have generated concerns among political communications researchers about the impact of social media on individuals’ political information and

Consequently, the current study is designed to enhance the literature by investigating how and why university students are actively seeking out political information on social media during the 2015 parliamentary election. Second, due to the speedy growth and popularity of social media in Egypt, especially after the 25 January Revolution 2011, it is significant to explore the impact it has on university students’ political knowledge during the 2015 election. Third, this study seeks to deepen researchers’’ understanding of the impact of social media on university students’ political knowledge and explore the type of social media usage and the uses and gratifications which are associated with using social media to get political information. Additionally, examining the uses and gratifications of social media for political information among university students in Egypt will provide an interesting counterpoint to the majority of work on this subject that derives from the United States and Europe, where political, social, cultural and economic systems are completely different. Fourth, according to the World Internet Users and Populations States, Egypt falls in the top fifteen countries with highest number of internet users. The youths in Egypt are

Survey was conducted on a sample of 400 students from three Egyptian universities during the 2015 Egyptian parliament election campaigns.The Quantitative approach was applied for data.

Research Questions:

Based on the literature reviewed above and the research purposes, this study examined following research questions:

1. To what extent are the participants exposed to the social media?

2. How often do university students actively seek out political information on social media?

3. What are the sources of information that participants use to obtain political knowledge about the 2015 election campaigns?

4. What are the most important political issues that respondents follow on social media during the 2015 election

5. What sources do university students consider expert and trustworthy in informing them about issues that help shape their voting decisions?

6. Do using social media increase a user’s likelihood to vote?

7. Which uses and gratifications are associated with social media usage in general?

8. Which uses and gratifications are associated with using social media to get political