Social media, politics, and young adults : the impact of social media use on young adults’ political efficacy, political knowledge, and political participation towards 2014 Indonesia general election

Abstract

The 2014 Indonesia General Election is a fourth general election that is conducted after the downfall of Soeharto’s authoritarian regime. This is the last general election that separates parliamentary election and presidential election. As the largest group of internet users in Indonesia, young adults were occupied 30 percent of total voters in this general election. This study tried to investigate the impact of social media use for political activities on young adults’ political efficacy, political participation, and political knowledge. Using an online questionnaire, a total of 593 young adults participated in this study. The results show that social media use for political activities influenced young adults’ political efficacy, political participation, and political knowledge. The highest influence was on young adults’ political efficacy. When trying to control social media use for political activities with frequency of general social media use, it was found that frequency of general social media use influenced social media use for political activities. Those with higher frequency of general social media use were also having higher frequency of social media use for political activities. After that, the investigation tried to work other way around. It was found that those with greater political efficacy, greater political participation, and greater political knowledge were also having higher frequency of social media use for political activities. These findings suggest that other intermediary factors may influence the relationships among variables in this study. Thus, further studies are needed to understand other intermediary factors that may influence these causal relationships.

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