TITLE: EFFECTS OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES CONSTRUCTION ON YOUTH WHILE EXPOSING TO FACEBOOK POLITICAL CONTENT

Abstract

This study aims to understand how the political materials on Facebook help young adults build and nurture political beliefs and ideals with the help of a survey. Facebook is one of the most used platforms, which makes it an ideal interface for participating in political activities like gathering information, debates, and sharing opinions. The study at hand deals with the question of how the political content of posts, videos, and comments shapes the users’ political beliefs and orientation. The study uses a survey method to analyze university students in Pakistan to understand the patterns of content consumption and engagement behaviors and their impact on the respondents’ political beliefs. The survey reflects data on the level of exposure, type of content and trust to the information that people share on Facebook about politics. It was discovered that algorithmic content personalization is user preference-oriented, which leads to the formation and maintenance of echo chambers, in which users receive more frequently than not, are only presented with viewpoints that reinforce their ideology and thus beliefs. Conversely, in a more isolated case, other political opinions tend to sometimes replace the prevailing views when they are exposed. The paper also highlights the significance of incendiary content in the further polarization and the disinformation contribution to the political perception. This means that the users must be digitally literate so that they can question the political posts on Facebook in a more efficient manner. This is useful information to understand the role of social media in political socialization and offers a ground to further research and policy recommendations to oversee the excessive polarization, as well as, to promote informed civic participation.