The treatment of journalistic content on social media in public affairs and the relationship between this treatment and the attitudes of Faculty members at the researcher at Libyan universities.

Abstract

This study aimed to identify how journalistic content on social media networks treat public affairs issues and the relationship between this treatment and the attitudes of faculty members at Libyan universities. To achieve this, the researcher formulated a set of questions and hypotheses. The researcher used the descriptive method, and for the analytical part of the study, content analysis was used . A content analysis form was used as a tool to analyze data from a sample of (1795) posts from five Facebook pages  The study’s results showed that political, livelihood, and economic content topped the priorities of the study’s pages, primarily for the purpose of informing and reporting. A neutral approach dominated the treatment of these issues. The results also indicated that the most important sources for content treatment are the official pages of institutions. The study found that the news story is the most frequently used format for addressing public affairs content. In the field part of the study, the researcher adopted the audience survey method targeting faculty members at Libyan universities as the study population. An electronic questionnaire was used as a tool to collect data from a sample of 400.. The study found that the faculty members’ reliance on the studied pages created diverse effects, with cognitive effects being the most prominent, followed by behavioral and then emotional effects. The study recommends encouraging communicators on journalistic platforms on social media networks to diversify the nature of the issues treatment, pay attention to the use of in-depth journalistic editing techniques, and emphasize the importance of using a variety of multimedia.