Digital Pathways to Political Engagement: Youth Information- Seeking and Social Media in Malaysia

Digital Pathways to Political Engagement: Youth Information- Seeking and Social Media in Malaysia

Nor Hafizah Abdullah¹*, Tuan Sharifah Azura Tuan Zaki², Muhamad Fazil Ahmad³ & Faradillah Iqmar Omar⁴, Wan Norshira Wan Mohd Ghazali⁵, Norhidayu Hasan⁶ & Nazra Aliff Nazri⁷

^{1, 2,3,5,6,7}Faculty of Languages and Communication, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Malaysia

⁴Faculty of Faculty of Social Sciences.

*Corresponding Author

DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2025.909000042

Received: 26 August 2025; Accepted: 04 September 2025; Published: 27 September 2025

ABSTRACT

Social media has become a powerful tool for accessing political information and enhancing civic engagement among young people. The interactive and participatory nature of social media has affected the way young people obtain political knowledge, which is arguably a key prerequisite for democratic participation. The study seeks to investigate the effect of political efficacy, policy satisfaction, political knowledge, motivation and perceived usefulness of social media on seeking political information behavior among Malaysian undergraduates. A quantitative survey was conducted among 381 respondents from selected public universities in Malaysia. Data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to test the hypothesized relationships between the independent variables and political information-seeking behavior. Findings reveal that political efficacy, knowledge and the usefulness of social media significantly predict information-seeking behavior among Malaysian youth. Moreover, policy satisfaction and motivation did not significantly predict leadership behaviors. The study emphasizes the value of digital platforms in youth political engagement. The results are vital to policymakers and educators for the enhancement of democratic participation and independent decision-making by the youth.

Keywords: Youth, social media, Political efficacy, Information-seeking behavior, Malaysia, Political participation

INTRODUCTION

Media and technology play a big role in shaping how people understand politics, society, and the economy. Since the 1980s, new technology starting with radio and TV, then moving to computers and the Internet has opened fresh ways for people to get information. These days, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube matter a lot to young people. They do not just consume news there; they talk about politics and share their own views. Researchers have pointed out how important social media is for getting people involved in politics (Abdullah et al., 2021; Salman & Salleh, 2020). In Malaysia, young people are by far the most active group online (MCMC, 2019). When they are online, looking up political news is one of their top activities (Razali & Ilham, 2021). Still, we do not know enough about what drives this behavior, things like how confident they feel, how much they know, what motivates them, and how satisfied they are with government policies especially in Malaysia. Older studies, like the one by Kaye and Johnson (2004), said we need to dig deeper into why people use social media for news, and how they judge the quality and trustworthiness of what they find. So, this study uses a survey to look at how political confidence, satisfaction with policies, knowledge, motivation, and how useful students think social media is affect their search for political news. Based on this, the study lays out these hypotheses:

H1: Political efficacy has a significant effect on political information-seeking behavior.

H2: Policy satisfaction has a significant effect on political information-seeking behavior. H3: Knowledge has a significant effect on political information-seeking behavior.

H4: Motivation has a significant effect on political information-seeking behavior.

H5: Usefulness of social media has a significant effect on political information-seeking behavior.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Recent meta-analyses confirm that digital media use positively correlates with civic and political participation worldwide (Boulianne, 2020; Boulianne & Theocharis, 2020). Building on this, Subre (2023) demonstrated that TikTok played a key role during GE15 in Malaysia, mobilizing millennials and shaping political narratives. When examining factors that predict online participation, political efficacy continues to be significant. For example, Moffett and Rice (2018) found that U.S. college students with higher efficacy were more likely to engage in online political expression. Similarly, Pratama and Nugroho (2022) identified efficacy as a key mediator of youth online participation in Indonesia. Although earlier works linked policy satisfaction with greater political participation (Whiteley et al., 2016), more recent research offers a different perspective, suggesting dissatisfaction can also stimulate activism. For instance, Kaur and Karim (2023) reported that Malaysian youths increasingly bypass institutional distrust by engaging in issue-driven online campaigns.

Knowledge has consistently been shown to drive political engagement. For example, Abdullah et al. (2021) found that politically knowledgeable Malaysian youths were more likely to discuss politics online. Building on this, Lee and Xenos (2022) confirmed that even incidental exposure to political information on social media can enhance deliberation quality and political learning among youth communities. While this study found no significant role for motivation, contrasting evidence from Lim and Lu (2022) suggests that intrinsic motivation, such as curiosity and civic duty, encourages selective news exposure online, and extrinsic influences like peer pressure can further reinforce political information-seeking behaviors. In addition, the growth of short-form video platforms, particularly TikTok and Instagram Reels, has transformed political communication strategies; Subre (2023) demonstrated that these platforms increase youth awareness of political issues and highlighted how their participatory features promote dialogue and civic engagement.

Social media platforms are structured to simplify information exchange, facilitate knowledge sharing, and enable users to express their views efficiently (Chan-Olmsted et al., 2013; Hassan et al., 2020; Nasidi et al., 2021). These features establish social media as a crucial medium for connecting individuals from diverse backgrounds in various information-seeking contexts. Lee and Lim (2016) found that users value social media for its high interactivity, which increases its perceived usefulness. Abdullah et al. (2021) reported an increasing reliance on new media for political information, underscoring its effectiveness as an intermediary for information retrieval. In addition to its informational role, social media supports the development of stronger social ties through continuous interactions. Lee and Lim (2016) noted that messages shared on these platforms serve as positive social reinforcements, which promote active user engagement.

METHODOLOGY

This study employed a quantitative approach with a questionnaire developed by the researchers, featuring a 7- point Likert scale. The participants were 381 undergraduate students aged 19 to 25 from Malaysian public universities, selected through multistage sampling. These students were chosen because they are among the most active users of social media. Data analysis began with descriptive statistics in SPSS Version 21, followed by a two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) process in AMOS 22.0. First, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) checked the reliability and validity of the measurement model. Next, SEM was used to explore how political efficacy, policy satisfaction, knowledge, motivation, and social media use relate to political information-seeking behavior. The model was assessed using fit indices such as Chi-square, RMSEA, CFI, NFI, and the Chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio. Finally, SEM tested the research hypotheses, and the research framework is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Conceptual Model

RESULTS

Participants’ Demography

As shown in Figure 2, female students constitute 54% of the survey respondents, while male students represent the rest (46%). The average age of respondents is 20 years, with about 99 % being between the ages of 19 and 24 and 1% being between the ages of 25 and 29. Malays make up the bulk of respondents (66.1%), with Chinese (18.9%) and Indians making up the rest (15%). The majority of respondents (66.1%) were Muslims, followed by Buddhism (15.5%), Hinduism (12.6%), and Christianity (12.6%) respectively. In terms of location, most of the respondents (67%) live in cities, while the rest live in towns (13%) and villages (20%).

Figure 2: Demographic profile of respondents (n=381)

Measurement Model

CFA was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model. The results demonstrated an acceptable model fit, with χ²/df = 1.038, CFI = 0.996, TLI = 0.995, and RMSEA = 0.011. These values indicate a robust fit of the model to the data. The assessment of the structural model further supported the adequacy of the direct model, as the goodness-of-fit indices—including GFI, CFI, NFI, TLI, and IFI—were either close to or exceeded the recommended threshold of 0.90. Moreover, the RMSEA value of 0.011 fell well within the acceptable range of 0.03 to 0.08, confirming the model’s suitability. As displayed in Table 1, all factor loadings, Average Variance Extracted (AVE), and Composite Reliability (CR) values were satisfactory. Composite reliability scores exceeded the recommended cutoff of 0.70, demonstrating the consistency of the constructs. Similarly, AVE values surpassed the 0.50 benchmark, indicating strong convergent validity. Specifically, the efficacy construct recorded AVE = .575 and CR = .871; knowledge, AVE = .593 and CR = .879; policy satisfaction, AVE = .600 and CR = .882; motivation, AVE = .592 and CR = .879; usefulness of social media, AVE = .592 and CR = .921; and information-seeking behavior, AVE = .590 and CR = .920. Together, these results provide strong evidence for the validity and reliability of the measurement model.

Table 1: Results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Table 2 presents the correlations among the constructs. For discriminant validity to be established, the correlation coefficient between any two constructs must be lower than the square root of the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) for each construct. The results indicate that this criterion was met across all constructs in the model, thereby confirming sufficient discriminant validity.

Table 2: Correlation table

Measurement Model

Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied to examine the direct contribution of each independent construct to the dependent variable. The statistical outcomes are summarized in Table 3, while Figure 3 provides a visual representation of the tested hypotheses and their results.

Figure 3: Structural Model

Table 3: Results of the hypothesized paths

The evaluation of the structural model demonstrated that the data achieved an excellent fit, with the indices reported as χ²/DF = 1.074, p = .000, CFI = .991, IFI = .991, TLI = .991, and RMSEA = .015. All the goodness- of-fit indicators exceeded the recommended threshold of 0.90, while the RMSEA value of .015 fell well within the acceptable range of .03 to .08. The coefficient of determination (R²) was .58, indicating that 58% of the variance in political information-seeking behavior could be explained by the model. As illustrated in Figure 3, the variables of political efficacy, policy satisfaction, knowledge, motivation, and the perceived usefulness of social media collectively accounted for more than half of the variance in information-seeking behavior. Results presented in Table 3 reveal that political efficacy (β = .185, CR = 3.693, p < .001), political knowledge (β = .079, CR = 1.982, p = .047), and the usefulness of social media (β = .097, CR = 2.307, p = .021) had significant positive effects on information-seeking behavior, thereby supporting hypotheses H1, H3, and H5. In contrast, policy satisfaction (β = .067, CR = 1.757, p = .079) and motivation (β = .076, CR = 1.743, p = .081) did not show significant effects, leading to the rejection of hypotheses H2 and H4.

CONCLUSION

This research identifies political efficacy, political knowledge, and the perceived usefulness of social media as primary predictors of political information-seeking among Malaysian youth. The results indicate that students who possess confidence in their understanding of and influence over political processes, as well as adequate political knowledge, are more likely to seek information through social media platforms. The perception of social media as a useful and accessible resource further establishes its role as a central medium for acquiring political knowledge. While policy satisfaction and motivation did not emerge as significant direct predictors in this study, existing literature indicates that these variables may have indirect effects. For instance, policy dissatisfaction may promote issue-based activism and online mobilization, and motivation may interact with peer influence and networked communities to enhance political engagement. These findings underscore the complex and dynamic nature of youth participation, shaped by structural, social, and technological factors. Policymakers and educators should prioritize programs that develop digital literacy, critical thinking, and evaluative skills among youth. Providing young people with the skills to identify reliable information and participate in informed dialogue can strengthen democratic participation. This study contributes to ongoing discussions on youth and digital political engagement by offering empirical evidence on the digital pathways influencing Malaysia’s future electorate.

REFERENCES

1. Abdullah, N. H., Hassan, I., Ahmad, M. F., Hassan, N. A. y Ismail, M. M. (2021). Social media, youths and political participation in Malaysia: A review of literature. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(4), 845-857. http://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i4/9578
2. Austin, W., van de Vord, R., Pinkleton, B. E. y Epstein, E. (2008). Celebrity endorsements and their potential to motivate young voters. Mass Communication and Society, 11(4), 420–436. 10.1080/15205430701866600
3. Awang, B., Jali, M. F. M., Ibrahim, Y., Sidek, A. H., Jeniri, A., Fauzi, R. y Lyndon, N. (2012). Persepsi politik pengundi belia Melayu pasca pilihan raya umum (PRU) 2008 di Malaysia (Political perceptions of Malay youth voters after the 2008 General Election in Malaysia). Jurnal Melayu, 9(1), 191–214.
4. Boulianne, (2020). Twenty years of digital media effects on civic and political participation. Communication Research, 47(7), 947–966. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650218808186
5. Boulianne, S., & Theocharis, Y. (2020). Young people, digital media, and engagement: A meta-analysis of research. Social Science Computer Review, 38(2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894439318814190
6. Chan-Olmsted, , Rim, H. y Zerba, A. (2013). Mobile news adoption among young adults: Examining the roles of perceptions, news consumption, and media usage. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 90(1), 126–147. http://doi.org/10.1177/1077699012468742
7. Charles, C. W. (2010). Impact of digital inequality on civic and political participation [Doctoral Disertación].
8. The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.
9. Chua C. (2006). Sample size estimation using Krejcie and Morgan and Cohen Statistical Power Analysis: A comparison. Jurnal Penyelidikan IPBL, 7(1), 78–86.
10. De Vreese, H. y Boomgaarden, H. (2006). News, political knowledge and participation: The differential
11. effects of news media exposure on political knowledge and participation. Acta Politica, 41(4), 317-341. http://doi.org/1057/palgrave.ap.5500164
12. Eady, , Bonneau, R., Tucker, J. A. y Nagler, J. (2020). News sharing on social media: Mapping the ideology of news media content, citizens, and politicians. https://osf.io/ch8gj/
13. Hassan, I., Azmi, M. N. L. y Abdullahi, A. M. (2020). Evaluating the spread of fake news and its detection techniques on Social Networking Romanian Journal of Communication and Public Relations, 22(1), 111-125.
14. Kaur, N., & Karim, M. S. (2023). Digital activism and youth political participation in Malaysia. Asian Journal of Communication, 33(2), 210–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2023.2171197
15. Kaye, B. K. y Johnson, T. J. (2002). Online and in the Know: Uses and gratifications of the web for political information. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 46(1), 54–71. http://doi.org/10.1207/s15506878jobem4601_4
16. Kaye, B. K. y Johnson, T. J. (2004). A web for all reasons: Uses and gratifications of Internet components for political information. Telematics and Informatics, 21(3), 197–223. http://doi.org/10.1016/S0736- 5853(03)00037-6
17. Krejcie, R. V. y Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining sample size for research activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 6(1), 607–610.
18. Lee, W. R. y Lim, E. P. (2016). Friendship maintenance and prediction in multiple social networks. HT 2016 Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media, 2(1), 83–92. http://doi.org/ 10.1145/2914586.2914593
19. Lee, , & Xenos, M. (2022). Incidental news exposure via social media and political participation: Evidence of reciprocal effects. New Media & Society, 24(1), 178–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820962121
20. Lim, , & Lu, Y. (2022). Selective exposure and political motivation on social media among young adults.
21. Computers in Human Behavior, 129,107143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2021.107143
22. Lingam, R. A. y Aripin, N. (2017). Comments on fire! classifying flaming comments on youtube videos in Malaysia. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 33(4), 104–118. http://doi.org/ 17576/JKMJC-2017-3304-07
23. Malaysian Communications and Multimedia (2019). Communications and multimedia pocketbook of statistics         2019. Cyberjaya.
24. https://mcmc.gov.my/skmmgovmy/media/general/pdf/1h-2016-cm- pocketbook_revised.pdf
25. Moffett, K. y Rice, L. L. (2018). College students and online political expression during the 2016 election.
26. Social Science Computer Review, 36(4), 422–439. http://doi.org/10.1177/0894439317721186
27. Muralidharan, S. y Sung, Y. (2016). Direct and mediating effects of information efficacy on voting behavior: Political socialization of young adults in the 2012 US presidential Communication Reports, 29(2), 100–114. http://doi.org/10.1080/089
28. Nasidi, Q. Y., Ahmad, M. F. y Hassan I. (2021). Mediating role of social media in the relationship between reliability, perceived usefulness on online shopping behavior: Building a conceptual framework. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(2), 385-393. http://doi.org/6007/ijarbss/v11-i2/8834
29. O’Neill, (2006). Human capital, civic engagement, and political participation: Canadian, turning skills and knowledge into engagement and   action. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.506.4559&rep=rep1& type=pdf
30. Pratama, , & Nugroho, A. (2022). Political efficacy, social media, and youth online participation in Indonesia.
31. Asian Social Science, 18(5), 45–60. https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v18n5p45
32. Rahmawati, S. y Dhewanto, W. (2014). Technology acceptance of optimization in search engine (internet) among optimizer in Indonesia. International Conference on Trends in Multidisciplinary Business and Economics Research, March, 185–196. http://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.2389.8566
33. Raoof, J. K., Zaman, H. B., Ahmad, A. y Al-qaraghuli, A. (2013). Using social network systems as a tool for political International Journal of Physical Sciences, 8(21), 1143–1148. doi_0.5897/ijps2013.3897
34. Razali, M. y Ilham, N. (2021). Media baharu dan aktiviti politik belia Melayu di Selangor (New media and political activities of Malay youth in Selangor). Journal of Social Science, 7(1), 45–54.
35. Salman, y Salleh, M. A. M. (2020). Examining the relationship between political agenda on social media and political support among university students. Jurnal Komunikasi: Malaysian Journal of Communication, 36(3), 281–295. http://doi.org/10.17576/jkmjc-2020-3603-17
36. Subre, S. M. (2023). The use of TikTok among millennials during General Election 15 (GE15) in Malaysia. Journal of                            Media  and Information   Warfare,    16(1), 77–94. https://jmiw.uitm.edu.my/images/Journal/Vol16No1/Article5.pdf
37. Tedesco, C. (2007). Examining internet interactivity effects on young adult political information efficacy.
38. American Behavioral Scientist, 50(9), 1183–1194. http://doi.org/10.1177/0002764207300041
39. Verba, S. (1996). The citizen as respondent: Sample surveys and American democracy presidential address, American political science association, 1995. American Political Science Review, 90(1), 1–7. http://doi.org/10.2307/2082793
40. Whiteley, F., Clarke, H. D., Sanders, D. y Steward, M. (2013). Why do voters lose And, trust in governments? Public perception of government honesty On, trustworthiness from 1997 to 2013 [Presentation]. Conference on Schools, Citizens and Politics in Britain Today: Still a Civic Culture. London.
41. Whiteley, , Clarke, H. D., Sanders, D. y Stewart, M. (2016). Why do voters lose trust in governments? Public perceptions of government honesty and trustworthiness in Britain 2000-2013. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 18(1), 234–254. http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-856X.12073