The Role of Facebook and Twitter as Social Media Networks in Building Political Interest: A Sociological Overview

Social media plays an important role in enhancing the interest of individuals in politics. This study aims to understand how social media contributes to political consciousness and how social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter influence political interest. To collect and analyze the data, this study employed a quantitative research method and a cross-sectional research design. Data was collected from 381 students at Punjab University through a simple random sampling technique. Data was collected through a questionnaire that contains close-ended questions. The collected data was analyzed through SPSS by using chi-square and Kendall's Tau-b test to determine the association and direction of association between study variables. At the bivariate level, the results indicate that there was a significant (p = 0.000) and positive association between the use of Facebook and political interest. The association between the use of Twitter and political interest was also significant (p = 0.000) and positive. At the multivariate level, the results indicate a spurious association between Facebook use and political interest, which was significant (p = 0.000) and positive (Tb = 0.941) when controlling for gender. Similarly, there is a spurious association between the use of Twitter and political interest that was significant (p = 0.000) and positive (Tb = 0.745) for both male and female genders.