Revolutionizing political participation: a modified UTAUT model for generation Z in the digital era

This study investigates social media–based political participation among Generation Z in North Sumatra, a multicultural region representing Indonesia’s sociocultural diversity. The research integrates a modified UTAUT model with connective action theory to explain how technological factors shape political engagement in digital environments. Data were collected from 500 university students and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The model assesses the effects of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions on behavioral intention and actual political participation, with political awareness tested as a moderating variable. The findings show that behavioral intention significantly mediates the relationship between technological determinants and political participation. Political awareness strengthens or weakens these relationships, and higher levels of political awareness are associated with lower intention to use platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook for political activities. The results also reveal the emergence of third spaces or hybrid activism that blend online and offline participation. These results demonstrate that social media enables flexible and decentralized political engagement while highlighting the complex role of civic awareness in shaping digital political behavior. The integrated framework advances the literature on digital politics by explaining how personalized political expression, technology use, and civic awareness interact to influence democratic participation in multicultural contexts.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Frontiers in Political Science

• Publication date

  2025-11-27

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3389/fpos.2025.1681050
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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