The effects of social media on political discourse of the political parties in the Kurdistan region

This study is an attempt to find the impact of social media platforms on the political discourse of political parties. The main aim of the study is to understand the extent to which the leaders of the political parties and politicians in the Kurdistan region use social media platforms. It also explores how and to what extent the political parties rely on and trust these social media platforms, in addition to examining the influences of the social media in general on the political discourse of the political parties. For achieving these aims, the research has employed survey method and a questionnaire form as a tool to collect data from the sample, which constitute of (201) leaders and prominent politicians in different parliamentary and political parties’ positions in the region. The key results of the research are that the discourse of the political parties is affected by social media platforms, and these platforms are used to a high extent by the politicians and the leaders. Moreover, the most popular platform among the Kurdish politicians is Facebbok as they believe it is the most effective to deliver the messages to the public.