Modeling Analysis of using Social Media toward Online Political
Participation of Young Adults
Mardiana Ridwan and Ama Suyanto
Telkom University, Telekomunikasi Street, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Social Media, Political Marketing, Online Discussion, Political Participation, Political Self-Efficacy.
Abstract: The rise of the Internet platform on social media during past years had supported by the growing number of
people that increasing interaction time driven using smartphones. And then, the trend of social media use is
increases the information, opportunities in the market, includes low-cost advertising, effective tool for the
business, and political realms. However, this study is to determine the major factor that related to online
political participation of young adults in Indonesia such as social media use, online discussion, political self-
efficacy and online political participation. The method is based on the investigation for the factors that
influence people to participate in politics. Much prior research showed that the factors such as social media
use, online discussion, and political self-efficacy related to online political participation.
1 INTRODUCTION
The wide of availability of information seeking by
the Internet facilitated people to discuss, share and
interact to any political topics by using social media
like Facebook or Twitter. In order to win the
election, many candidates use social networking
sites to get attention and sympathy from voters.
Then, some of the candidates and political parties
created the campaign to promote their self to the
public.
The campaign can be in the form of a traditional
method such as debate and speech in the public and
modern method which based on the Internet like
social media. For example, the Major City of
Bandung named Ridwan Kamil is an example of a
successful politician that created a creative
campaign through social media such as Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube and so on (Jamilah, 2016).
Besides that, social media has created political
marketing and also provided political education for
the citizens.
The fundamental strategy of political marketing
is using an effort made by the political parties,
candidates, and volunteers or the success teams
carried information and programs of the political
actor through certain mass media and the Internet
(Suyanto, 2016; Suyanto and Arwiyah, 2015). While
political education can be understood as a process of
socialization to internalize the values which
considered ideal and needs to be fought thus the
achievements of the process is in the form of
political attitudes and behaviors that oriented on the
efforts to achieve and support the ideal system
(Suyanto and Arwiyah, 2015).
Prior studies stated that the variables such as
social media use, online discussion, political self-
efficacy are the dominant factors to influence online
political participation of young adults (Kushin and
Yamamoto, 2010; Dimitrova, 2014; Yang and
DeHart, 2016; Li and Chan, 2016). It was
undeniable if the political impact on social media is
resulted to create public opinion and a tool of civil
movement includes winning the elections. For
example, on the Jakarta governor election in 2012,
Joko Widodo and Basuki Tjahtja Purnama won the
election through digital volunteer which the member
of Jokowi-Ahok Social Media Volunteers or
JASMEV (Burhanuddin, 2015). And also, social
media is created online and offline discussion which
delivered political information to the public and
increased political interest of young adults.
The Ministry of Communication and Informatics
or Kemenkominfo mentioned that the internet users
in Indonesia currently reach 63 million people. From
that number, 95 percent of people use the internet to
access social networking (Nn, 2013). While the
majority of Facebook users in Indonesia is 16
percent from 13 until 19 years old, 22 percent from
396
Ridwan, M. and Suyanto, A.
Modeling Analysis of using Social Media toward Online Political Participation of Young Adults.
In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business, and Philanthropy (ICIEBP 2017) - Transforming Islamic Economy and Societies, pages 396-399
ISBN: 978-989-758-315-5
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

20 until 29 years old, 7.5 percent from 30 until 49
years old, and the rest of the users are more than 50
years old (Noviandri, 2015). Thus, many young
adults are the social media users in Indonesia. In
addition, the use of social media is not only to
increase the communication and strengthen the
friendship between people but also to discuss the
political issues, government policies, and public
figure behaviors.
2 LITERATURE STUDY
Social media is a group of the Internet based
application that build on the ideological and
technological foundations of Web 2.0 thus allow the
creation and exchange of user-generated content
(Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). The characteristics of
social media that contain of network, information,
interactivity among users can be used in politics of
young people on information seeking and participate
in online communities (Kushin and Yamamoto,
2010). The social media platforms such as
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Line, Blog,
Wikipedia and so on wherein enhance young
people’s online, civic engagement, and offline
political participation (Yang and DeHart, 2016).
Previous study discovered that individuals who
spend more time on social media also consume more
news compared to others media like information
from traditional media, traditional broadcast and
online media, hence information consumption in
social networking sites (SNSs) have a positive direct
effect on civic participation in politics (Halpern,
2013). Most studies mentioned that young adult
between ages 18-29 in United States used social
media for news consumption and political activities
have grown since the 2008 presidential campaign
(Yamamoto, 2016). Most studies in the US provided
some evidence that social media positively related to
online discussion and online political participation
(Li and Chan, 2016).
The discussion refers to critical to democracy
because talk is a decision that procedure involving
disputation and agreements which improve both of
the public reason and public good, while discussion
by online through media technology such as
Facebook or Twitter (Li and Chan, 2016). The use of
media for information may encourage political
discussions and increase the likelihood of
communicating about civic life via interpersonal
conversations in offline settings, email and personal
online (Halpern, 2013). Then, the people who
participated in frequent issues specific political
discussion had a better understanding of politics and
also, more politically sophisticated (Zhang, 2014).
The proportion of online political discussion is
the participants in the form of individuals, bloggers,
media, politicians, or associated with the interest
group, or other organizations (Hagar, 2014). The
forms of young people’s political participation in
Jakarta only at the level of low consequence such as
discuss political issues with friends or colleagues as
part of the conversation or daily discussion to pass
the time (Morissan, 2014). Besides that, online
discussion mostly for the person have less interest in
politics thus predicted the information used to
analyze three media such as offline, online and Web
2.0 will directly influence the interpersonal
discussion in the different forms such as face to face,
online via email, and through social networking sites
(SNSs) that will create levels of civic participation
through collective efficacy (Halpern, 2013).
Political self-efficacy is one of the relatively
effective predictors of political participation
(Coleman, 2008), while the use of Internet has been
influencing society to enhance political
participation. Study report that young people’s
Internet use has been found to facilitate political
efficacy and political participation (Grönfeldt,
2016). Bandura stated that the definition of self-
efficacy is an individual’s belief in his or her ability
to perform successfully, it can be general or specific
to a task or situation (Grönfeldt, 2016). The concept
of political efficacy is to believe that a
communicative relationship exists between oneself
and the institutions that govern society (Coleman,
2008). Political efficacy is to believe that a
communicative relationship exists between oneself
and the institutions that govern society (Coleman,
2008).
Scholars have differentiated between ‘internal’
and ‘external’ efficacy. The individual competence
to understand and participate in politics, to bring
change into society through personal engagement
and using the individual’s resources and capabilities
is the definition of internal political efficacy where
to belief about the responsiveness of governmental
authorities and institutions to citizens demands is the
definition of external political efficacy (Grönfeldt,
2016). Most studies on political efficacy including
the measures of internal and external efficacy
(Grönfeldt, 2016). Recent study has tried to connect
political self-efficacy with online political
participation, while the political self-efficacy of US
college students influencing to online political
participation and motivated to use social media to
Modeling Analysis of using Social Media toward Online Political Participation of Young Adults
397

talk about politics or political purposes (Yang and
DeHart, 2016).
Political participation is the participation of
citizens in the activities that can influence the
structure of government, selection of officials, and
policies while online political participation has been
defined in the same way as conventional political
participation, except that the activities are occurring
in an online context (Yang and DeHart, 2016).
In another way, political participation refers to
all kind of activities of an individual or group to
participate through the Internet for political practices
like being a political volunteer on social media.
Besides that, media and the Internet were played
important in political information and increased
citizen political interest. The number of studies has
examined how different types of digital media
influence citizens knowledge of political issues
(Dimitrova, 2014). While knowledge is influenced
by media exposure, both media exposure and
knowledge have impact on political participation
(Vreesea and Boomgaardenb, 2006).
3 METHODOLOGIES
The research framework in this study is based on the
literature study. This research is to describe the
factors from the previous study which have
relationship to political participation.
The research type is investigation which based
on the variables such as social media use, online
discussion, political self-efficacy that related to
online political participation whether directly or
mediated by other variables
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The characteristics of net generation are the global
generation that grew up with the Internet and social
media. Compare to the previous generation, they are
smarter, faster and more tolerant of the diversity.
The net generation prefers to communicate through
the Internet rather than over the telephone because
they can perform of multi-tasking activities. The
political campaign, analysis, raising support, and
opinion war on Twitter about the candidates are one
of the political participation in the net generation
(Subiakto and Ida, 2014).
Attention to social media like seeking
information was significant during the US 2008
campaign especially among young adults (Ajir,
2014). Young voters are usually regarded as not
much involves in politics (Utz, 2009). When young
adults were interested in politics, they more likely to
use the Internet for political purpose rather than
others age groups (Utz, 2009). Then, the politicians
use the Internet to engage young adults to participate
in the campaign by checking SNS (social network
sites) candidates account because checking SNS has
become a daily routine for many young adults (Utz,
2009). Thus, SNS was one of a tool in the political
campaign after web pages and web blogs (Utz,
2009).
The theoretical framework of this study uses four
variables such as social media use, online
discussion, political self-efficacy, and online
participation. Those variables were chosen in this
study because the variables could have the
relationship on the political decision making. The
variables like participation and interaction on social
media was mentioned in the previous research stated
that participation have influence in winning the
election while the other research has mentioned
those variables of participation and interaction on
social media has effect in the political campaigns
which indirectly affected political participation
(Andronicius, 2016; Atmodjo, 2014)
Figure 1: Research framework based on the literature
study.
Figure 1 show that the research framework is to
know the direct and indirect relationship of social
media use toward online political participation. Prior
studies mentioned the use of social media is
positively related to online political participation in
particular young adults (Yang and DeHart, 2016; Li
and Chan, 2016; Atmodjo, 2014), political self-
efficacy positively related to online political
participation (Yang and DeHart, 2016). Besides that,
the individuals that have political trust will tend to
have the high level of political participation whereas
people who lack political trust for the government or
politicians will have the low level of political
ICIEBP 2017 - 1st International Conference on Islamic Economics, Business and Philanthropy
398

participation (Bourne, 2010; Wahyudi, 2013). The
social media interactions in the political campaigns
have a correlation to the electoral success and also
shown that online discussion will positively impact
to online political participation (Hagar, 2014; Utz,
2009).
5 CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATION
AND FUTURE RESEARCH
This research is only described the factors that
influence political participation of young adults.
Thus, the researcher did not collect to statistically
analyze the data.
The future research can examine the model in
this research whether the model is acceptable or not
in Indonesia.
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