The Effects of the Election Mediums on Voting Decisions of the School of Communication Students: The Example of the Constitutional Referendum Held on 16th April, 2017

Participation in political decisions as the necessity of the democratic structure, is an important issue in the agenda of modern societies. Voting behavior which is the first form that comes to mind of political participation, has been influenced by the individual’s socioeconomic and social psychological processes in the society. One of the most important factor affecting this process is the mass media. In modern democracies, progress in computer and the Internet technologies increases the circulation of information in time and space, which can affect the individual’s view and thought about public issues. It can be said that the political communication that emerged as a result of the combination of politics and communication and which is getting more and more difficult to separate these two fields has become dependent on mass media. This study aims to reveal the politic agenda following and voting behaviors of communication faculty students who are expected to lead this field in the future with their education. In this study which was conducted to examine the relationship between the media usage habits of school of communication students and voting behaviors in the example of the 16th April Constitutional Referendum, has been concluded that the influence of communication mediums on the participation of students in political decisions is limited