Usage and Gratification of Social Media in Higher Education: A Survey on the Perceptions of International Students in Turkey

This study grounded in the user centered media theory of uses and gratification; it investigated on the usage and gratification of social media among international students pursuing higher education in Turkey, through a survey conducted on a sample of international students in Istanbul City, Turkey. The study was quantitative in nature in which structured questionnaires were used to get data on a randomly selected sample. Findings indicate that 68.2% of the respondents used social media for more than twice a week to interact with peers for studying outside classroom. Likewise, social media platform commonly used included YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google group and Twitter. As a gratification, the respondents used You Tube to watch educational video clips on lectures delivered from other universities, watched Turkish videos to improve on their Turkish language skills. Facebook and Whatsapp were used for instant messaging, sharing academic information with classmates and professors. Findings indicate that using Social Media positively influenced their lifestyles and helped them to excel academically as reflected in the responses. The study therefore concludes that Social Media is an essential communication tool among international students in Turkey in supporting their higher education.

Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 7 -Issue: 3 July -2017 Furthermore, during this study, responses were pursued about students' regularity in using social media to interact with classmates to study and work on class assignments outside of the classroom. As well as their frequency in using it while interacting with Professors to study and work on class assignments outside of the classroom. (Likert scale of 1 Never to 5 More than Twice a Week). Table 2, shows that majority of the students represented by 68.2% of the respondents use social media for more than twice a week to interact with classmates to study and also work on class assignments outside of the classroom. In as far as their interaction with Professors to study and work on class assignments outside of the classroom, the study revealed that majority of the students represented by 44%, used it more than twice a

Findings as indicated in
week. However, basing on these findings it is evident that students use social media among themselves and with their professors for academic purposes including course works and sharing of information.

Academic Gratification got in Using Social Media
As the contemporary uses and gratifications theory posits that media consumption is purposive and users actively seek to fulfill their needs through a variety of uses (David, 2002:71). This was also observed in the findings of this study as students had different gratifications gained from using social media. As reflected in table 4, below. (Likert scale of 1 Strongly Disagree to 5 Strongly Agee). Findings concluded that 42.6% agreed and 28.6% strongly agreed with the assertion that social media enables them to interact with their professors and with their classmate. This implies that these respondents used social media to full fill their need for interaction with those two categories.
Similarly, 45.5% of the respondents agreed and 29.7 strongly agreed that they use social media to full fill their information need thus enabling them to get ideas on related subjects from group forums like Facebook, Whatsapp and other groups. Remarkably, 43.6% of the respondents agreed that their gratification attained from using social media was sharing of their research findings with their classmates. This gratification is in line with the educational use of social media likewise 41.6% observed that they gain from social media as it enables them contact peers and discuss relevant issues and enhance collaborative learning.
Meanwhile, 39.6% agreed that they benefited from social media as they use it for classroom announcements to fellow students and discussion of academic issues, hence making the platform useful in their education endeavors.

Conclusion and Recommendation
Basing on the data obtained, the respondents who participated were from different nationalities and backgrounds which could also impact on their usage of social media in academics. By and large the majorities were male, undergraduate and in the age group of 15-25 who were under Social and Administrative Sciences specialties. Findings shows that majority of the students represented by 68% of the respondents use social media more than twice a week to interact with classmates to study and also work on class assignments outside classroom environment.
In as far as their interaction with Professors to study and work on class assignments outside the classroom, the study revealed that majority of the students represented by 44%, used it more than twice a week. Findings showed that majority of the international students composing of 37% agreed that using different social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Whatsapp and Tweeter supports their educational learning, whereas 36% strongly agreed with the same assertion. As 55.4% of the respondents very often used YouTube to watch educational video-clips compared to other plat form. Also seen in their gratification they used You Tube to watch lectures for other universities, to learn Turkish and to repeat lessons. In the second position, 36.6% of the respondent affirmed their usage of Whatsapp for instant messaging and academic update.
In line with Quan-Haase & Young (2010) who found six key dimensions of gratifications obtained from Facebook namely; pastime, affection, fashion, share problems, sociability, and social information. This study also revealed that some respondents expressed some negative Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 7 -Issue: 3 July -2017 aspects of social media in their academic learning, despite the numerous advantages to their education. Some of the perceived negative aspects included; time wastage, as some students waste much of their time by chatting or using different type of alternative which has nothing to do with the academic learning. Sometimes some of information spread out by social media is not authentic and credible in academia hence cannot be referenced. Likewise learning by social media do not permit extensive discussion, thinking and the learner loses feeling of learning, which they can get in face to face interaction with the teacher. Some students use media for fun like posting nude pictures, videos and others use it to express their anger and ego.
Consequently upon the findings, it can be concluded that social media although in the past it was merely a social network of creating and chatting with friends, Social Media have a number of affordances that can make them useful in teaching and learning environments as it can support pedagogical approaches of active learning; social learning and student publication, by providing environments and technologies that promote these interactions. We can use social media technology as a powerful networking for knowledge sharing among international students in Turkey.
Recommendations: Based on the findings, the study recommends the adaptation and the adoption of social media in the educational system prior to modern technology prosperity. I strongly encourage this because the academic learning system which involves the use of social media has already of course existed but in a very low percentage of the world`s academic learning tradition, therefore I encourage the rapid contemplation of its importance by many universities. In academic learning it is good because for some student especially in practical disciplines like in laboratories if there is experimental apparatus students can easily learn from You Tube and other social Media and can further be used as a demonstrative platform. However, a general course can be provided to new international students in Turkey especially undergraduates about social media usage in education like computer literacy courses so that they can make good use of it in line with their higher education.
As a conclusion, social media is slowly being accepted as one of the facilitating tools to help lecturers conduct their class more effective and interactive. However, to be able to manipulate the full potential of this platform, awareness on how to operationalize the Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 7 -Issue: 3 July -2017 platform and control the risk of using this platform needs to be provided. Hands on training need to be conducted to educate the majority adopters of lecturers who are interested to use the platform for teaching purposes. Finally, a study can be conducted on the "Information seeking behaviors of international Students: A comparative study on Radio, TV and Internet.
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies Volume: 7 -Issue: 3 July -2017