Attitudes of University Students about the Statements of Iraqi Political Elites

A Survey Study of a Sample of University Youth in Baghdad

Abstract

Various visual media are becoming an increasingly important and active instrument of communication. This fact has led some political parties and leading personalities in Iraq to make use of them as an accepted forum for the discussion of public affairs usually in a manner that conforms to their declared policy. They have to draw as much popular support as they could for the causes which they fight for. As a result, a state of great confusion has been created from the contradictory statements made by the contending parties and gave left grave consequences on all types of the audience receiving them. The problem of the study can be summarized in one major question: What is the opinions of the audience as regards the statements made by the political elites and how far the audience interacts with them?
This paper is to an attempt to examine some the role played by the press conferences in encouraging acts of violence in Iraq. It aims at explaining the contradictory nature of the statements made by the political parties and personalities and at exposing their adverse impact on the audience responding to them. A qualitative method approach is proposed for the study. It requires that the researcher conducts a survey on a casual sample of the population in order to reach a full understanding of the audiences' attitudes about the real content of the statements. The sample of the study has been mainly drawn from the young students of the universities in Baghdad. The choice serves two deliberate purposes: first, the university students represent a wide section of the society and second, they come from different background political social and economic which could variously affect their views and thoughts towards the current issues and the way they deal with them.