A study on social media influencers opinion leadership perceptions of faculty of theology students

Education, which aims to raise people with religion, which has a promise for every aspect of life, is faced with a new environment today. Technology and mass media can directly and indirectly affect educational processes and the people who are the subjects of education. Especially the epistemic sources that individuals are fed, the abundance of information and its free circulation stand out as an issue that needs to be examined in terms of religious education processes. The opportunity of interaction provided to individuals by the developing internet technology has also brought social media phenomena. While in the past there were individuals who stood out as "opinion leaders", today phenomena can have an important place in terms of recognition and influence. Again, the formal field of teachers may have less place in an individual's life than influencers. The aim of this study is to measure the perception of social media influencers as opinion leaders among students studying at the faculty of theology, which are institutions providing higher religious education. In this direction, the variables in the personal information form were analyzed for their motivation to follow social media influencers at the point of opinion leadership. In the 2021-2022 academic year, 466 students studying at Necmettin Erbakan University Ahmet Keleşoğlu Faculty of Theology participated in the study. The sample group of the study consisted of 1st and secondary education students from every level from prep to 4th grade, 30% and 100% Arabic education. The participants were administered the "Social media influencers' opinion leadership scale in the eyes of followers". The responses were analyzed with the information obtained for demographic variables and data were collected The answers given by the participants were analyzed with SPSS 27. package program. Percentage, frequency, standard deviation and arithmetic mean values were obtained for the determined problem and sub-problems. When comparing the data, t-test was used between two groups, and one-way ANOVA was used to compare more than two groups. Post-hoc Tukey test was used for further analysis in case of significant differences. According to the results of the analysis, theology faculty students tend to follow social media influencers with opinion leadership motivations in the dimensions of entertainment and communication. In addition, influencers who share religious posts are attributed more opinion leadership role than those who do not share religious posts. It is also among the findings that theology faculty students have positive opinions about social media influencers in terms of opinion leadership in the dimensions of knowledge, trust, closeness, imitation, communication and entertainment.