Influence of social media usage on students’ political participation in a selected university in South Africa

Abstract

This paper articulates the influence of social media on university students’ political participation in a South African University. The aspects of political participation the study will be examining are the voting process, political awareness, political debates, mass meetings, and political campaigns. The objectives of the study are to investigate the extent of social media usage by students and how social media influences the political participation of students. Dalton’s theory on cognitive mobilization theory of civic literacy and participation is employed in this study to explain social media’s influence and political participation. The study utilised the mixed-method approach, where 120 respondents were drawn from the target population through stratified sampling techniques. On the one hand, for the quantitative strand of the study, data were collected through a survey and analysed using relevant descriptive analytical tools. On the other hand, thematic and content analysis was utilised to analyse semi-structured interviews. While a huge majority of the participants indicated that they used various social media platforms, it is evident that WhatsApp is the preferred social media application used by respondents. It is also evident that social media usage influences students’ political participation, especially for males. The findings also suggest that most students, especially females mainly use their social media platforms for entertainment purposes, exhibiting low rates of political participation. A few recommendations are made in the study regarding the issues of low rates of political participation among university students.