The Importance of Using Hashtags on Raising Awareness about Social Issues

Abstract

Hashtags are a great way for people to search for topics on social networks that have a common theme. This study tried to explore the importance and power of hashtags that have gained popularity, on raising awareness about social issues. 252 participants (118 males and 134 females) participated in this study. In order to collect data, a questionnaire survey was used. The final questionnaire consisted of 20 items. It was a 4-point Likert scale: (1) Strongly disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Agree, (4) Strongly agree. Means, standard deviations, a t-test and degrees were scored to analyze the participants’ responses to the items of questionnaire. The results revealed that the overall degree of the expected benefits of using hashtags on raising the awareness about social events was high. Moreover, the results also revealed that there were no statistically significant differences, regarding gender (male and female).