The Impact of Virtual Social Network on Inclination to the Electoral Participation and Political Orientation (Case Study: College Students in Isfahan)

It seems that social media is one of the most important factors influencing on the willingness of citizens to participate in elections and their tendency to one of the legitimate political group in the country. In this regard, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of social media network on people's tendency to participate in elections as well as their political orientation. For these purpose the target population included all university students in Isfahan in the academic year 95-1394. 306 of them have selected through cluster sampling as sample size, and the study conducted in survey method. In this respect, the result shows whereas increasing activity on the social media cause increase in electoral participation, but the real treat to the social network content and increase the daily intake of such networks have a negative impact on people's tendency of participating in the election. Finally the results indicate that the social network influence people’s political orientation, in such way that people whose form social network usage are more likely to tend to seek the reformist political group than others.