The Voting Decision: Social Media Use, Internal and External Efficacy Aspects

Malaysia is a country that practices parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarch. Elections are an integral part of each independent nation’s democratic system. Voters have criteria to choose from, as well as the candidate’s political stance. The younger generation is defined as a group of people who exhibit political behaviour cultural traits such as being critical, learning more about a subject, and being concerned about transparency and honesty. This study aims to examine the level of the political efficacy of young people on the voting decisions of young people. The quantitative method used questionnaire instruments involving 384 respondents in the Melaka state. The SPSS statistics programme was used to analyse the data. The findings revealed that respondents’ social media use is low while political efficacy is moderate. Young people’s political efficacy is moderate in both internal and external political efficacy, as measured by understanding political and administrative principles and mastery of local and national political concerns. This research has strengthened the concept of political efficacy, which will have a more mature and rational impact on people’s political engagement. Keyword: Social Media Use, Internal Political Efficacy, External Political Efficacy, Young Voter, Democratic System Introduction Elections are an important element in a democratic system for an independent country. It is a process that allows the people to choose the leaders and parties that will form the government. Each time an election takes place, the contesting political party will field the best candidate to ensure that it is the voters’ choice. On the other hand, voters have the criteria of the candidate they will choose in addition to the political ideology adhered to by the candidate. Malaysia is a country that practices parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarch. Parliamentary democracy in Malaysia stipulates that only legitimate political parties and achieves victory in general elections held every five years will occupy Parliament and run the government through the provisions of the Federal Constitution. A general election is a International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 7, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 1527 method by which the people’s vote is used to select a candidate elected in an election who will fill the legislature and Local Government positions. The younger generation of youth is the largest group today with specific behavioral and cultural characteristics. Their position, role, and involvement in many matters need to be strengthened. The future leadership of the country depends on the young people of today. These people will determine the fall or rise of political parties and leaders in this country. Their involvement and participation in elections are vital to choosing the party that will rule the country. The post-GE 2018 saw the PH Government enact a law in Parliament to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 and managed to get support from MPs, including from the opposition parties, namely BN and PAS. This raises various polemics in terms of political effectiveness and the willingness of the 18 -year -old to participate in electoral politics. These include their maturity in political decision-making, an increase in the number of voters, the cost of conducting elections, an increase in election management staff as well as logistical suitability, and various other implications that will be faced as a result of the enforcement of the 18 year age limit. Furthermore, this group is an active social media user. Therefore a wide range of information, whether true or false, also influences the political participation of young people. The decision to lowering the voting age must have an empirical explanation, and even though this notion being discusses, there is no empirical data or model develop from the previous study. Thus, this study aims to examine the level of the political efficacy of young people on the voting decisions of young people. Social Media Use Boosts New Voter Decision to Vote Young people regard the Internet as a flexible medium for information seeking (Kim, 2013) (Rosengard, 2014), get political news update (Ingrid Bachmann 2013), online political messaging for opinion expression (Valenzuela, 2013), and political expression (Masahiro Yamamoto 2014) enhance through a mobile political application. According to Mohd Sufiean et al (2016) social media help to increase new voter intention to participate in the general election. However, Pinkleton (2012) stresses that greater exposure to negative political issues or dissatisfaction with media can affect participants’ cynicism and political apathy will lead to lower political participation among young people. It also will affect to the different levels of political participation either participate or not to participate. Biswas et al (2014) findings show that social media significantly influences the voting behavior of the people in large and semi-urban areas through the use of social media. Social media plays an important role in the voting behavior of young voters using attractive advertisements, especially towards students. It is not only can attract people’s attention even shaping the behavior to turning out during the election. Their study also found that people who actively use social media tend to make their decision based on the political content he reads. Social media not only raises awareness among the public but also serves as a force to demand individual’s turnout and vote. YouTube is among the sources of information that decide to vote (Biswas et al., 2014). According to Bashky et al (2012), social media has a tremendous influence on voter participation in elections. Facebook is found to be a digital platform that has high political sentiment among users. This is due to its function that allows users to comment and share status, audio, and visuals with other users. In addition, they also can interact and participate in the existing public debate space. Besides, Junaidi (2010) stated, the influence of social International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 1 1 , No. 7, 2021, E-ISSN: 2222-6990 © 2021 HRMARS 1528 media such as Facebook and Twitter is very large in the context of political behavior among students. One of the understandable political behaviors is the decision to vote during an election. In the 14th general election (GE), the prominence of people’s issues such as rising prices of goods and petrol, corruption, nepotism, implementation of GST, and marketability of graduates had an impact on voting behavior in the election (Hamedan et al., 2019). Chen (2016) stated that today’s social media networks can lead to an increase in political participation, among which, is the act of voting in elections. In another study, the level of political participation either through social media or influenced by social media was found to be high among young people especially students (Zainon & Hashim, 2017). In the United States, the impact of social media on turnout also shows a direct correlation. Social media is found to have a strong impact on citizens who are already interested in politics, so they are more oriented to go out and vote (Steinberg, 2015). Thereby, we propose the following: Internal Political Efficacy and New Voter Decision to Vote Internal political efficacy may have less explanatory value in the prediction of unplanned or habitual behavior, simply due to the more influential role of other motivational forces and automatic activation (Bargh, 1997). Indeed, evidence suggests that intentional behavior can be explained using internal efficacy, also represented as perceived behavioral control (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1981). Studies on political efficacy in Germany stated that internal political efficacy is something that is translated from political knowledge and then influences various actions of political participation, including conventionally i.e., going out to vote (Reichert, 2016). Internal efficacy is also described by Ajzen (2012) as something that increases the willingness to participate. Such willing behavior is an important basic condition in determining actual action or behavior. This is also in line with the statements of Deth et al (2007) particularly in the context of voting turnout. Studies in 24 European and American countries (1999-2000) on political efficacy explain the findings of the study based on individuals and countries in general. Individually, internal efficacy plays a major role in driving a person’s likelihood of engaging with political participation. In general, at the national level, internal efficacy drives the probability of participation in representative forums, however, it does not directly lead to turnout results. Thus, individual representative participation is determined by internal efficacy, whereas voting exit is seen as a conventional civic norm (Amna et al., 2004). Schulz (2005) states that voting is one of the political participations which is also referred to as electoral participation. This action is the least intensive political participation compared to other political activities. According to him, electoral participation is related to political interests, knowledge, trust, and political communication. The findings of the study state, internal efficacy is related to political interests, political discussion, and media use. Thus, internal efficacy indirectly contributes to the voting activity which is electoral participation. Reichert (2016) who conducted a study on respondents who lived in Germany aged 16 years and older also found that internal political efficacy did not directly affect the decision to vote, but it had an indirect influence through the conscious decision to vote. Political internal efficacy is also referred to as political self-efficacy that justifies political engagement,