A RESEARCH ON 2014 ELAZIG LOCAL ELECTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE AND POLITICAL BEHAVIOR

Political knowledge is a kind of information that voters have about the political system, political developments and elections. Political knowledge both influences voter behavior and influenced by voter behavior. For this reason, there is an inevitable relationship between political knowledge and political behavior. In democratic societies, the shaping of voters' preferences is possible with the political knowledge they possess throughout their lifetime, and especially in the electoral process. However, the political information that voters have is different from each other both qualitatively and quantitatively. Therefore the measurement of political knowledge has become one of the main research topics. Determining the level of political knowledge of the electorate on local elections and revealing the relationship between this level of knowledge and political behavior constitutes the subject of this study. In this study, it was aimed to determine the level of political knowledge about Elaz？g elections, local elections, political candidates and campaign process in 2014 local elections and to determine socio-demographic variables affecting this level. Survey technique was applied for collecting in field research. According to the simple random sample, 1150 people were reached in the research. According to findings obtained from the research, it was determined that political information shows differences according to gender, age, education and income status variables. In addition, the result is that the traditional and new media are the most important means of obtaining information in the process of political information acquisition