Impact of Cyber Bullying on Political Behavior and Youth’s Perceptions about Use of Social Media by Political Parties of Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose: Present study analyses social media users’ perceptions about presence of cyber bullying in political contents on Facebook and Twitter. In the presence of social media cells of political parties, this study designed to analyze impact of cyber bullying on political behavior of users.
 Design/Methodology/Approach: Present study utilized survey research techniques and data from 300 male and female social media users was collected through a well-designed questionnaire.
 Findings: Major findings indicate consistent use of social media by youngster and users believe that there is rise in political contents on social media. Social media bullying is creating a political divide among supporters of different political parties. Bullying contents creating hatred, enmity, hostility, aggression and anger against supporters of other parties. Users are the view that offensive language, photo shopped images, impersonation, spoofing, misleading facts are faced by users in political contents. Results also reveal that male users face more offensive language as compared to female users of social media due to wider friendship circle.
 Implications/Originality/Value: It is evident from the finding that bullying, trolling and memes has emerged as new way of political agenda setting and major area to reinforce voters about certain political ideology in the context of Pakistan’s political atmosphere.