Technology, Public Sphere, Social Media: A Research on PoliticalParticipation and Social Media Use of University Students

The aim of this study is to understand the relation between social media use and politicalparticipation in terms of declarations of social media users, which is one of the mostabsorbing subjects since the widespread use of social media. In accordance, aquestionnaire which is designed to show patterns of political use of social media was givento university students. Results of 251 questionnaires were assessed with making use ofconcepts of information society and public sphere. Results show that although socialmedia usage potentially helps users to reach more information and political knowledge,there is no direct link between social media use and political participation. Moreoverresults Indicate that students would not share political ideas which would be considered ascontrarian by majority.