The connection between social media and political communication: A research on İnönü University students

With the invention of Web 2.0 communication technologies have changed on a large scale. Users have become content producers and every institution and individual have had the chance to show existence on social media and this change has gradually induced the structure of the socities. Political institutions and political actors are also actively involved in social networks as evidenced by the changing society structure in parallel with new communication technologies, as can be seen in the world and in Turkey. Social media tools, such as websites, blogs , forums, are being used by political actors to reach voters directly. In terms of politics young people form an important target group. According to the researches young people use the new communication technologies, especially social media, effectively and intensively. Therefore it seems compulsory for political actors to wield online communication methods instead of traditional communication methods in order to reach these young people.The purpose of this research is to reveal the usage extent of social media for the purpose of political participation by the university youth. For this purpose, 700 students from İnönü University were determined as a sample and they were applied a survey with which it was tried to reach the results regarding the relationship between political participacition and the social media.