SOCIAL NETWORKING AND ITS IMPACT ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE: MEDIA COLLAGE IN THI-QAR AS A CASE STUDY

There may be no doubt that Social networking has gained wider acceptability and usefulness and is also becoming possibly the most important communication tools amongst college students particularly at the higher stage of instructional pursuit. Whilst, to up-date in the Arab countries used social media only protest and indignation of services. There are many studies has focused on the benefits of the social networking tools in educational institutions. Unfortunately, most of these studies conducted in developed countries. While, the developing countries, in particular the Middle East, considered as a first place that harness the social networking tools in the political events through Arab Spring. Therefore, this study concentrates to investigate the effect of use social media with universities in Iraq as the Middle East country, in particular Dhi-Qar University. This study strives this study strives to focus on the potentials of social media within the educational setting by means of collaborative learning and enhance the students' overall academic performance based on social network platforms. The study selected the students randomly from the Mass Media in Thi-Qar University. For analysis aspect, SEM-PLS technique was employed in analyzing and validating the raw data. IBM SPSS and Smartpls v.3 were used as the instruments for analysis purpose. The findings had shown that, there was a strong positive relationship between the engagement and collaborative learning and collaborative leaning with student academic performance.