The Role of Electronic Journalism in the Jordanian Parliamentary Elections From the Viewpoint of Jordanian University Students: A Survey Study

Abstract

This study aims to identify the role of electronic journalism in Jordan's parliamentary elections, which were held in late 2016 and were conducted through a practical study of the students of the Arab Open University (Jordan).

 To achieve the objectives of the study, the researcher used the analytical descriptive approach.  Guided by some of the foundations of the two democratic theories of communication and social responsibility, the former calls for the right of citizens to obtain the right information, guidance and facts, while the latter stresses the need for the press to carry out its duties toward the political development of society.

The study was based on the prescriptive curriculum and on a simple random sample of 177 students from the Arab Open University (Jordan Branch), who were given a resolution designed for this purpose.

 The study showed a series of results, the most important of which were: There is a moderate degree of role of the electronic press in disseminating facts, information and guidance on the 2016 parliamentary elections, a weak degree of oversight of the electronic press in parliamentary elections, and a moderate degree of electronic journalism in the political development process.  There were statistically significant differences at the level of significance (a =0.05) in the disadvantages of using electronic press and in its role in political development during parliamentary elections, of the gender variant, and the differences came in favor of males.