Rumors in social networking sites and their role in violence and political conflict among Egyptian university youth – A Field Study
, Vol.5
, Sixteenth Issue
PP:10 - 11
Authors:
Dr. Mamdouh Elsayed Shatla -Assistant Professor of Media,Educational Media Department,Faculty of Specific Education ,Kafresheikh University
Abstract:
This study aims to identify the spread of Rumors in the social media networks and its role in creating violence and political conflict among university youth. The researcher used the questionnaire survey method as a tool to collect study data. He adopted Intentional sampling procedure. 400 questionnaire samples were equally applied on youth from four different Egyptian universities including Kafrelsheikh, Al-Azahr and 6th October Universities as well as American University in Cairo. The samples included were equally applied on males and females.
The study yielded the following results:
• Facebook came in the forefront of social media networks use and preference among young university students. While the other social media networks such as WhatsApp and YouTube came in the second and third order; respectively.
• Communication with friends and family came in the forefront of the reasons why university youth are keen to browse the social media networks, followed by the elimination of free time in the second ranking, and the keenness to browse and share the pages, posts, comments and tweets in the third and last ranking.
• For the time of Emergence of rumors in the society; during the terrorist operations was the most important time and came in the first order, followed by its emergence during war time which came in the second ranking, during the time of revolutions came in the third order, while its emergence in times of crises came in the last order .
• The most important goal of rumors spread through the social media networks was to raise violence and political conflict within the society which came in the first order, followed by the dissociation of the society unity in the second order, agitation of confusion and chaos among individuals in society came in the third order, while destruction of the values and peace in the society came in the last order.
• Additionally, 65.5% of the respondents identified that the rumors spread through social media causes political violence and conflict, 65% of them showed that rumors spread through social media causes political mobility in many Arab countries which is known as the Arab Spring revolutions. Moreover, 61.3% of youth reported that the rumors spread through social media was to demonstrate against the political decisions, and 57.9% showed that the rumors spread was a crises induction and confusion in the state.
Key Words:
Rumors - Social media networks- Violence - Political conflict - University youth.
Research Language:
Arabic
|