Assessing the Impacts of Social Media On Political Participation of People in District Lakki-Marwat Pakistan

Abstract

Existing studies undertaken by researchers have identified a positive correlation between social media and citizen’s political participation. But mostly these studies took place in developed states and also neglected social media impacts oncitizens political engagement in rural and marginalized areas. To fill the scientific gap, current research study intends to analyze social media impacts on political engagement in the remote area of Pakistan i.e. LakkiMarwat. Furthermore, Literacy has also been inserted as a control variable. To test the linkage between aforementioned variables, current study utilized a structured interview schedule where 384 respondents were taken as a representative sample. Besides that, for analysis purposechi-square statistic was used atBi and Multivariate levels. Furthermore, correlation test has also been carried out on data to determine association between aforementioned variables. The findings revealed that social media affects individual political behavior; creates political awareness;and develops individual political knowledge hence facilitates their participation in civic and political activities. On the other hand, study also hinted that social media platforms expose individuals to the unwarranted political information and manipulative campaign of political parties.These findings contribute to the existing literature by providing new insights into how social media affects individual political participation