The role of social media on youths' politcal participation in Iraqi Kurdistan region the Halabja University case

This research tries to examine the role of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in political participation of youths in Kurdistan region of Iraq. It seeks to explain the relation between social media and political participation, and tries to detect the relationship between political participation with different political components such as political knowledge, political discussion, and political interest. During the study, some questions are raised; these questions are examined by testing some hypotheses that deduced from the literature review. Moreover, data are collected quantitatively to test the validity of the hypotheses of the research. In this study, quantitative method is adopted, survey approach is used in collecting data process by adopting questionnaire. And non-probability approach is used for determining the sample of the study by adopting purposive method. The sample included 250 young citizens aged between 18 and 30 in Halabja city of Iraqi Kurdistan region. The study concluded that there is a correlation between using social media such as Facebook and YouTube with conventional and nonconventional types of political participation. Moreover, the results of the study detects an relation between using social media such as Facebook and YouTube and twitter with political interest, and the study finds out a relationship between consuming both Facebook and YouTube with political discussion, and the study detected only relationship between checking Facebook with having political knowledge. In addition, the study shows a relation between both types of political participation, conventional and nonconventional, with political discussion and political interest. Keywords: Social Media, political participation, political interest. Political discussion, political knowledge, young people, Kurdistan region of Iraq.