Abstract

It has been argued that social media in the contemporary world now occupies a top agenda of many business executives, political players and analysts, social engineers, decision makers and consultants. As a growing phenomenon, the contemporary colouration of politics around the world is such that it has made the deployment of social media seemingly inevitable and political victory appears to be largely tied to the effective use of the social media. Similarly, the role of the youth in political participations and electioneering processes in societies of the world has now been a major force in the direction of political pendulum at a given point in time. Therefore, the strategic positions of both the youth and social media in electioneering processes define the aim of this study. Specifically, this study surveyed the youths of Ilorin South on the use of social media for political participations during the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria. Anchored on the Uses and Gratification theory, this study found that, through social media, the Ilorin South youths showed great concern and participation during the 2015 General Elections in Nigeria and, by extension, to the political development in the country. This is demonstrated through the use of social media, notably the Facebook, to share political/electoral information among themselves, in order to increase political awareness and to influence voting decisions. It is recommended that politicians, political administrators and political office holders should strategically deploy the social media for social engineering, politicking and electioneering processes, and give the youths a rightful place in the scheme of things, particularly in politics.