Pages: (43-62 )
Abstract
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence-generated political content presents new opportunities and risks for democratic participation. These developments have created uncertainty regarding the extent to which social media will positively influence youth political mobilisation or further intensify political misinformation, ideological polarisation, and voter manipulation. This study examined the perception of social media as a tool for youth political mobilisation and the problems associated with it in advance of the 2027 General Elections in Nigeria. The study was anchored in the Uses and Gratifications Theory and adopted a descriptive survey research design. Primary data were obtained using a structured online questionnaire from 380 respondents using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Statistical tools such as frequencies, percentages and mean scores were used to analyse the data collected, with a decision criterion mean score of 3.00 adopted. The results revealed that respondents saw social media as a way to engage youths in political mobilisation by encouraging voter registration, political discourse, campaign and election-related activities (x̄ = 4.01). Fake news, misinformation, hate speech and political propaganda are major problems associated with social media use for political mobilisation (x̄ = 4.07). The study concludes that social media is a significant platform for engaging youths in pre-election political activities, but its significance might be limited by the political information available on the medium. This study recommends that political stakeholders, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and civil society organisations make greater use of social media to educate voters and raise civic awareness.
Keywords: Misinformation, Political participation, Social media, Youth political mobilisation, 2027 General Elections,