Intention for Voting IN PAKISTAN: THE role of Social Media, Ethnicity, and Religiosity

Abstract

The issue “Exploring Social Media, Ethnicity, and Religiosity Role on Intention for Voting in Pakistan“ is a huge study embracing more issues. The politics of Pakistan is basically the politics of semantic groups. Pakistan is a multilingual state more than six languages. There are 245 religious parties in Pakistan, as elaborated by the Daily Times research. The use of social media sites in Pakistan peaked to its maximum after announcement of election schedule by the Election Commission of Pakistan in March 22, 2013. Most of the political parties used it for the recent elections in Pakistan to promote their agenda and attract country's 80 million registered electors. The theories interact with the research topic are theory of reasoned action (TRA), theory of planned behaviour (TBP), Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), and Social Ecological Model (SEM. The variables introduced in this research are Social Media, Ethnicity, Religiosity, and Intention for Voting. The proposed model have four dependent variables. A survey constructed from 24 questions were used to capture the respondents’ opinions regarding eight variables in a 7-likert scale. A sample of 1336 Pakistani citizen were collected. Data was collected within three months’ period, from 1 March 2015 until 31 May 2015. Distribution of the survey took place in four major cities; Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi/Islamabad. Data obtained from the survey is analysed by utilizing the software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The proposed research model have three hypothesis that demonstrate the relations. From the three hypotheses, two hypothesis are significant while one hypothesis are rejected. Results highlight on the importance of social media in politics aspects, therefore further research is recommended.