The Role of Social Media Platforms in the Candidates’ Campaign for the Kurdistan Parliament Election of 2024

Abstract

In this research, the researcher works on the importance of social media platforms in conveying candidates’ messages and their impact on voters with classifying the platforms from the most used to the least used by voters for the purpose of being aware of Sulaimani constituency’s candidates’ election campaign messages and activities for the (2024) Kurdistan parliamentary elections. The researcher sought through practical aspects based on descriptive methods and through (survey) to achieve the objectives of this research, the most important of which is to determine the type of social media platform which had the most users in the (2024) Kurdistan parliamentary election campaign. The most evident conclusions reached by the researcher are: The three social media platforms (TikTok, Facebook, Instagram) identified by the researcher were used by voters at different levels, however the (TikTok) platform had the most users for the aim of being aware of (2024) Kurdistan parliamentary elections candidates’ messages and activities. Political parties’ candidates have accorded importance to social media platforms to disseminate their messages and activities, however the candidates of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s candidates had the highest importance paid to applying social media platforms while giving a special importance to the (Tik Tok) platform within the platforms. The researchers focused more on the messages and activities of the candidates posted via videos. At the same time, the messages and activities posted through the (TikTok) platform had the greatest impact on the voters in order to decide to vote for the candidates.