The Effects of Social Media on the University Students’ Voting Behavior in General Elections in the Kurdistan Region

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to know and display the extent in which social media sites and platforms affect the voting behavior of the university students in the Kurdistan region during general elections, either to participate in the election or to vote for a specific candidate or political party. It also explores how the students participate and interact with the electoral messages and information that are published on social media platforms. This research is a political communication study, which relies on the survey method utilizing questionnaire form as a tool for data collection from the participants. The questionnaire form was designed and implemented online through Google Form and was sent to the participants through Email, Messenger, Viber and Whatsup, to the university student in different universities in the Kurdistan region. As such, 344 persons of the sample have filled up the questionnaire form in one week from 10 to 16 August 2021. The results of the study were displayed in tables and were analyzed through descriptive method, in addition to the use of SPSS statistics software to find correlation between the two main variables of the study. One of the most prominent results of this study was that only a small proportion of the participants (almost 27%) are influenced by social media to change their voting behavior such as deciding to vote or no, and voting for a specific candidate or political party. Another noticeable result was that the majority of the participants with almost (50%) do not trust the promises and speeches of the candidates and political parties that are published on social media platforms.