Perceived value of social media in students’ participation in social movement: A developing country perspective
ISSN: 2059-5816
Article publication date: 28 November 2019
Issue publication date: 5 December 2019
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the use of social media (SM) and its influence for increasing students’ participation in the quota reform movement at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Design/methodology/approach
The revised technology acceptance model (TAM) was used to formulate this research’s hypotheses. A survey was administered to obtain data about students’ intention to use SM. The survey consisted of a set of questions based upon the revised TAM model. A total of 498 surveys were distributed and 304 students responded to it; hence, response rate was of 61.04%. A regression and single way ANOVA were conducted to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results indicate that most of the students use SM for academic purposes and to get connected with friends. Among the social networking tools, Facebook is the most widely used by the respondents. Findings supported that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of SM affect student’s intention to increase participation in the quota reform movement. There were no significant relationships between gender and politics with the use of SM.
Research limitations/implications
A sample of students from Dhaka University was taken and the sample size was small. As a result, the findings of this study cannot be generalized in other settings. SM has a positive effect in the societies where change happens through collective actions.
Originality/value
Why and how students use SM has been widely discussed over the available literature, but students’ intention to use for it for social movements has not been studied. This study has made an effort to empirically examine the use of SM in the context of the quota reform movement in Bangladesh.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors of this study are one of those winners of 2019 International Paper Contest (IPC) of SIG-III, ASIS&T. This paper has been awarded as “Third Place” in the IPC held by the Special Interest Group on International Information Issues (SIG-III) of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T). Authors are grateful to anonymous reviewers for their expert advice and suggestions that helped to improve the quality of this paper. The authors would like to thank Professor Dr Wasimul Bari who greatly assisted for the statistical analysis and it was a tremendous help for the authors. Finally, they are thankful to Dhaka University students for their support.
Citation
Akter, S. and Islam, M.A. (2019), "Perceived value of social media in students’ participation in social movement: A developing country perspective", Digital Library Perspectives, Vol. 35 No. 3/4, pp. 244-258. https://doi.org/10.1108/DLP-06-2019-0023
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited