Social Media and Student Political Participation: a Case Study of the University of Uyo Students in the 2023 General Elections

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between social media usage and student political participation in the 2023 general election. Three objectives, three research questions, one null hypothesis, and one alternative hypothesis were formulated to guide the study. The survey research design was adopted for the study. The Population of the study consisted of 33,838 undergraduate students of the University of Uyo. A sample size of 395 respondents was selected using the Taro Yamane (1967) sample size determination formula. The questionnaire tagged “Social Media Usage And Student Political Participation Questionnaire (SMUSPPQ)” was used for data collection in the study. The Mean was used to analyze the objectives of the study while Chi-square statistics (x) was used to test the hypotheses of the study at .05 level of significance. Findings of the study revealed that social media usage has a significant relationship with student political participation in the 2023 general election. Based on this finding, it was recommended, among others, that the potential advantage of the media especially the social media must be tapped by the university authorities, political organizations and other concerned agencies of government to increase political knowledge, political interest and political participation of students in Nigeria.