USAGE PATTERNS OF POLITICAL PARTIES; CONTENT ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL PAGES

Abstract

The online group of communities offers people the opportunity to connect not only with their social platform groups but beyond that group. An advanced era of the social world started in Pakistan after 2004 when a platform like Facebook and Twitter started their services for Pakistani people. The study in hand explores the impact of the political use of social media on political awareness within its predictor’s political knowledge, efficacy, and participation as well as the relationship between the political awareness among the youth of Pakistan and the usage pattern of political parties on Facebook and Twitter. The study employs the content analysis to discover the usage pattern of political parties on these two platforms and the results show that the political use of social media by three well-known parties in Pakistan influence the political knowledge, and online and offline political participation of people. Despite a direct significant positive relationship between these two predictors of political awareness, political efficacy is not at all influenced by the political use of social media but has a slight effect on the political awareness of youth.