Academic Attitudes toward the Role of Social Media in Shaping Electronic Public Opinion about Crises An applied Study on (Corona Virus Crisis)

Social media represent one of the modern communication technologies that contribute to expressing public opinion trends towards various events and crises, such as the new COVID-19, which is characterized by its ability to influence the community’s life We formulated the questions on the attitudes of the academies towards the role of social media sites in forming electronic public opinion through distributing a questionnaire to (148) faculty members at various colleges It is shown that Facebook ranked first with a percentage of (43 2%), because the participants find it the easiest way to express and share their opinions with their friends and followers Instagram, which is used to know the latest news and share photos, ranked second followed by Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter Moreover, they used social media sites three hours a day, which is an indication of their importance Furthermore, expressing their feelings towards the crisis of COVID-19 outbreak ranked first with a percentage of (78 %) The most important communication benefits were achieved when the academies used social networking sites to post information on their profiles with precautionary and preventive measures This asserts the important role the academies play in raising awareness throughout crises © 2020 NSP Natural Sciences Publishing Cor