The Impact of Social Media on Political Efficacy and Real-Life Netizens Political Participation (Lebanon- Case Study)

Abstract

Purpose: The objective of this study was to explore netizens' external and internal political efficacy as being exposed to political branding on social media and to show how political branding would level up the citizens’ political awareness and boost their participation in voting in the parliamentary election. Lebanon was taken as a case study. Theoretical framework: Recent literature has reported the impact of social media political branding on youth participation in voting while other studies have been done separately about the impact of social media political branding on citizens’ political efficacy particularly in developed countries. (Binder et al., 2021; Hassan & Ridzuan, 2021; Moorman et al., 2019; Slipetska, 2021; Lau et al., 2021) However, there is still much to investigate about netizens’ political efficacy and participation in a developing country like Lebanon. Methodology: The study used the deductive approach and was based on using of primary statistical data for testing the hypotheses which have been analyzed by SPSS v22. The population, 491participants, from whom the data was obtained randomly were Lebanese people of age groups over 21 in various provinces. Findings: Overall, the data reflects a positive correlation of social media impact on voters' political participation, and it implies that the political influence of social media platforms on the self-external and internal efficacy is strong. Research, Practical & Social Implications: On the Lebanese level, and as the election has been done, it is recommended to measure the youth participation in voting. Also, this study is very beneficial to be used by the governments themselves for fostering the political efficacy of the nations, especially in developing countries. Originality: This study analyses the role social media does in encouraging citizens’ political efficacy and political participation in voting especially after the offensive revolution Lebanese have done pre- election comparing with many previous parliamentary elections in which participation was so shy and didn’t exceed 49.70 %. (Ministry of Interior and Municipalities, 2018)