SOCIAL MEDIA AND POLITICAL AWARENESS

Abstract

This study aims to fill a theoretical gap about how social media affects political awareness. This study examines how social media helps people learn about politics outside of school. Talking with other people on social media is different from doing things that are not directly political. This study is a cross-sectional survey of first-year college students from Pakistan's Sindh's five biggest campuses. Nine hundred seventy-seven students completed questionnaires in total. The results show that students can learn about politics through political discussion on social media networks. The more students talk about politics on social media, the better they understand politics. Since social media activities don't involve users, they only do little to raise political awareness. This study shows that students learn more about politics when they talk about it with their peers than when they only use social media. For people to understand politics through social media, they need to talk about politics. Students' political awareness also depends on their gender, age, and how much money they have. The results are essential for platform-specific research to determine how social media activities affect each platform based on how it works.