Abstract
Usage of the Social Media as a Political Tool: A Study on the Students of Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Communication
The social media in Turkey, which owns one of the youngest population among the European Union countries, leads to shape or evolute the media world, transportation sector, education system and even the fashion life. It is almost impossible for the political communication to avoid from it also. Just as an organization needs to produce some communication practices to its target audience with in giving importance to their economic and demographic characteristics in order to make profit, so as the political parties or candidates do. Therefore it is vital to choose the right mass communication tools to reach the voters in terms of time, cost and labor expense. In this study, a research has done among the university students to find out whether are they using the social media tools as a political communication tool just as they do with the traditional political communication tools or not. Within this study, three habits of the university students have been tried to find out: (1) The relationship between the habits of the students' social media usage and usage of the social media as a political communication tool. (2) The frequency of the social media usage and usage of social media as a political communication tool. (3) The duration on Internet and usage of the social media as a political communication tool. In order to find out these statements, a survey has been done to Adnan Menderes University students.
Keywords
Political communication, new media, social media applications.
