How social media empowers physical disabled influencers for inclusive communities in Egypt: A quantitative survey on users’ perspectives

Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

1 PR and Advertising, Faculty of Masscom , MSA University

2 journalism, Faculty of mass communication , MSA University

Abstract

Social media offers new ways of communication on the internet and allow interactive
activities through different platforms and applications like: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
YouTube and Tiktok.
Social media also allows users the possibility of constructing, at least in part, their personal
identity in a way that is different from what happens in physical reality.
The main aim of the study is to explore how social media empowers physical disables
(Mentally/ Physiology/ Down syndrome) influencers to be socially included in the society and
how they can inspire audience, and how audience accept them as a part of the community.
The study depended on conducting a survey which will be applied on (486 ) respondents males/females from age18 to 60, from different social categories.


The study concluded there is a significant moderate positive relationship between Age and
Representation of physical that disable social media influencers in public event rate at 90%
confidence level. Also, over half of the respondents were Instagram users, with a minority
using Twitter. Most respondents spent 2-4 hours on social media daily, with few spending
just 1 hour or more than 6 hours . The majority did not follow disabled influencers, though a
minority did, when asked about their attraction to influencers, most respondents said it was
due to awareness and seeing influencers as successful people; few said it was because they
had friends with similar disabilities.

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Main Subjects