Social Media as a Marketing Tool for Political Purpose and Its Implications on Political Knowledge, Participation, and Interest

Abstract

Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities these days. In 2018, it is estimated that 2.65 billion people were using social media worldwide and these numbers are expected to reach almost 3.1 billion by 2021, the majority of whom are young people. With some notable exceptions, there are few studies that have been undertaken in the field of politics and social media. This study examines how usage of social media for political purpose influences the voting behavior of the voter in this realm. The authors test the proposition that using social media for political use offers a new pathway to their political participation, interest, and knowledge using path analysis. Results demonstrate that political use of social media impacted both levels of and growth in traditional political participation, interest, and knowledge during the 2019 election.