Abstract:
The historic role of the students of public universities of Bangladesh in political participation are remarkable. They led some of the most consequential political events like the 1952 language movement, The 1966 six-point demands, the 1969 mass uprising that played a crucial role on the independence of Bangladesh. And in 21st century’s information age, the public university students are considered the active user of social media in political participation. This study sought to explore how social media impacts the political participation among public university students in Bangladesh, focusing on the years spanning from 2010 to 2020. To meeting the objectives of the study, a thorough survey of 200 students from four prominent universities: University of Dhaka (DU), Jahangirnagar University (JU), Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), and Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (KUET) and in-depth interviews with 10 IT experts, teachers, political leaders, and journalists were carried-on. The empirical study focuses on the student' perceptions and experiences of their use of social media in political activism, such as social media usages purposes, student’s party affiliation, time spent on party activities, factors that influence them in politics, and identify social media they use for political communication. The study also reveals curious insights into active participation of the recent past political events such as the Shahbag protests, the Quota reform movement, and the Nirapad Sarak Chai Movement. Additional assessment shows whether the substantive importance of the University of Dhaka student’s union election-DUCSU.
