Post Political Content among Youth in Facebook

Abstract

The vibrancy of information and communication technology has made it possible for interactive internet use in daily communication. Users’ involvement in online interaction via social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedt has specifically been seen to have some implications on communication and interaction. This research focuses on the use of new media as platforms to facilitate the dissemination of information, where access is unrestricted and users are free to voice out their opinions and increase their levels of political participation. The aim of this research is to explore the extent of youths’ perceptions on national political climate via a social media platform which is Facebook. In-depth interviews with youths aged 15 to 30 years old were carried out to collect data. This research adopted the approach used in Media System Dependency Theory by (Ball-Rokeach, 1985). The findings from this research showed that new media i.e. Facebook was accepted as a democracy space for political information in which youths took active online political participation. The findings were supported by the responses from the respondents which showed youths’ tendency towards using their image and display content on Facebook as reasons to use Facebook as a platform for political participation.

Keywords: Youth; Facebook; Media System Dependency Theory; political participation; social media