Malang, 2 September 2023. The rapid influence of social media can influence a person's behavior, including in relation to aspects of political communication towards the upcoming 2024 elections. This phenomenon attracted the attention of one of the UMM Government Science Study Program lecturers, namely Prof. Dr. Asep Nurjaman, M.Sc. He said that social media greatly influences election preferences for young voters.
"Students or youth are a generation that is very in touch with technology and can be called young voters. They usually look for news through social media. "Therefore, the more viral someone is, the more famous they will be, including the presidential candidate of the Republic of Indonesia," said Prof Asep.
He also said that youth's intensive use of social media could lead to their preferences for certain candidates. So even in the 2024 election, in this context, young people will probably be greatly affected by the influence of social media.
"In this way, young people are expected to make a positive contribution by looking for alternative presidents who can build the nation and state without focusing on the popularity of a presidential candidate," said Prof Asep.
Regarding the widespread phenomenon of money politics, which does not rule out the possibility that it could occur in the upcoming 2024 elections, Mr. Asep said that young people need to take part in educating the public so that they are not easily influenced by bad things and the smell of fraud.
"The problem with the 2024 elections is the rise of money politics, therefore young people need to contribute positively, regarding how to prevent and provide the best example so that this nation can avoid money politics by providing outreach and educating the public so that the 2024 elections will be democratic, fair and free from money politics," concluded Prof Asep. (van/roz)
