Zara, Gemey2024-08-282024-08-282023Gemey, Z. (2023). Social media as political marketing tool: Its influence on youth political participation. Bachelor dissertation. University of Aruba. 122 pp.https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14473/910The objective of this research is to determine to what extent social media, used as a marketing tool by Aruban politicians and political parties, influences the political participation of the youth of Aruba. Furthermore, another objective is to determine what types of social media have a significant influence on youth political participation. The results of this research provided recommendations to political parties and the government on how to engage the youth in politics and enhance the political participation of the youth in Aruba. The main research question for this research was “To what extent does social media, used as a marketing tool by Aruban politicians and political parties, influence the political participation of the youth of Aruba?”. This is a quantitative research design (n = 121). The theoretical models that were used for this research were derived from the research from the authors Kahne & Bowyer (2018) who used the theory from Ito et al. (2009) and Jenkins (2009). The theoretical model focuses on the dimensions of online activity, specifically friendship-driven (FD) activity and interest-driven (ID) activity. Furthermore, the theory also focuses on political participation such as online and offline political participation. The research instrument used to collect data for this research was an online self-administered questionnaire which was filled by 132 participants. The data analysis was conducted through the SPSS program. The results of this research show that social media use has a positive relationship with youth political participation. More specifically, the Aruban youth who are more involved with FD online activities are more inclined to participate in online forms of participatory politics.EnglishSocial mediaSocial media useYouthPolitical participationYouth political participationBachelor dissertation