| Summary: | The development of technology in media provides advanced communication processes and sources of information conventionally provided by news agencies, but today, media users can create information. The ability to create media content benefits the exposure to social media use and affects the Government's decision to lower the voting age in Malaysia (Undi18). The implementation of Undi18 is based on the judgment that new young voters have high political interests and greater political knowledge that lead to the decision to vote. This study aims to measure the impact of media literacy competency on the decision to vote among new young voters and develop the decision to vote model from a media literacy perspective. By using simple random sampling for a quantitative survey among 323 respondents among higher education institutions in Malaysia. This study deploys Structural Equation Modelling for descriptive and inferential analysis apart from model development evaluation. This study found that media literacy competency has significantly influenced the decision to vote among new young voters. The decision to vote model from media literacy theory developed in this study found that analysis and evaluate is a strong predictor towards the decision to vote among new young voters followed by access and act dimensions. Surprisingly, create dimension reported a negative influence towards the decision to vote among new young voters. Young people did not create political updates through their social media account due to socioeconomic, psychological, and social factors that have been discussed in this article. © 2024 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.
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