The main goal
of this paper is to study the effect of media use especially
the Internet on political behavior of Tehran University students. To this end,
the effect of Internet use is investigated not only by considering the amount
of access, the utilized online sources for the news-seeking, etc., but also
through the effects of environmental and cognitive elements.
Population of
this study is composed of students from Tehran University divided into 4 groups
of Humanities, the Arts, Engineering, and Sciences. Data was collected using
the survey method through conducting 295 structured, face-to-face interviews.
Findings show that the
Internet is used more frequently than other media for
tracking political news, with nearly 90 percent of
respondents indicating that they use the Internet for the purpose of finding
political news. Participation in the demonstrations among non-traditional
political behaviors, and voting in elections among traditional political
behaviors are more common among the students than the other political
activities. The results of structural equation modeling show that the
effect of media news exposure on political behavior is through the intermediate
variable of political efficacy.