Youth political participation is indeed an engaging area of academic research that is increasingly evolving. However, some recent studies suggest that traditional form of political participation especially among youth has been declining in developed and developing countries which may likely create uncertain future for democracy. For instance, in many countries youth are not stimulated by the traditional media such as Radio, Television and Newspaper. Conversely, other findings illustrate the sudden and unprecedented increase in youth engagement in political activities through the use of Facebook. Youth now have access to political information and interact directly with political candidates. Nevertheless, researchers have not clearly examined why youth political participation suddenly changed and what it's the driving force is. In posing these questions, scholars have suggested that certain features of Facebook such as usage pattern, diversity network of Facebook friends and interactivity with political figures should be examined. The paper therefore concludes that there exists a positive linkage between Facebook usage and youth political participation.

Abstract. This paper focuses on the role of Facebook use, interactivity with politicians, quality of information and political interest as the predictors of online political participation among youth. The paper argues that Facebook use, interactivity, quality of information and political interests have the potential to engender online political participation among Nigerian youth. Also, by offering them an avenue for acquiring political information necessary for making an informed political decision through deliberations on Facebook; in order to bring new political changes and group mobilization. Therefore, the study was implemented with survey questionnaires collected from youth in Bauchi metropolis (N= 372). Findings reveal that Facebook use, quality of information and political interest positively correlates with online political participation while interactivity with the politicians did not significantly influence online political participation among youth.

One of the issues in sustaining collaborative partnerships involves the drivers of change and transformation in the process. In particular to this study, various factors have gradually transformed the collaborative partnership activities in the quest for sustaining the collaborative efforts to empower children in orphanages. The paper seeks to explain one of the factors considering the significant discussion among the stakeholders regarding their perspectives on whether long-term partnership is valuable. Using a qualitative case study design, this study uses two methods of data collection with interview as the main method, supported by document review. The data collected were analysed thematically and the findings from the interviews were compared to the findings from documents reviewed. Later the findings are placed alongside the findings of the previous studies from the literature reviewed in the discussions. Based on the interview responses of 24 participants from five stakeholder groups in this collaborative setting and the review of available documents, the findings mainly revealed that partnerships are mostly pragmatics and programme based. Diverse views are given in considering the importance of partnerships to be sustained over a long period in order to be effective. This challenges the common notion that long-term commitment or relationships are needed for effective partnerships.

Social Construction Theory assumes that the development of communication technology in the organization causes the organization's staff to share meanings and actions responding to the technology. Meanwhile, the Theory of Social Influence explains the impact of new technology applications such as social media usage affects the environment. These theories emphasise that social media such as WhatsApp has taken over traditional communication and become one of the primary communication channels in the organization. Accordingly, based on the assumptions found in both theories, this study was conducted to identify the determinants of WhatsApp acceptance as a medium of interaction between staff in an organization. Specifically, this study applies a qualitative method to examine WhatsApp usage as a medium of interaction. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with the middle-level management staff at a public university. All informants were the staff members who have served the university for more than five years and have used WhatsApp for work-related matters. The interview transcription was analysed using the thematic analysis based on the assumptions of both theories. The research finding shows that the combination of both theories were able to explain the factor of WhatsApp usage and its implications among the staff in the organization. Therefore, this study has contributed towards the strengthening of the assumptions found in the Theory of Social Construction that is interpretive flexibility, tolerance, socio-cultural and stability, and also in the Theory of Social Influence which is compliance, identification, and internalization. In addition, this study has also contributed to studies related to communication technology usage and strengthening the theories related to these aspects. Keywords: Social media, WhatsApp, qualitative study, social construction theory, social influence theory.

Curriculum is one of the collaborative partnership strategies used in the community efforts to develop the underprivileged children in Malaysia. This curriculum was developed by the community members to assist community partnership efforts to impart ICT knowledge and skills, personal development elements, and encourage learners to contribute to the society via a CSP. Based on the available documents, this paper examines how the curriculum is able to bring the stakeholders together in the collaborative partnerships, and how underprivileged children are engaged in the efforts. This analysis will focus on the distinctive conjunction of personal development, ICT, and community service elements in the curriculum.