The role of strategic communication in decision-making from the perspective of public relations practitioners in Saudi government institutions

Abstract

Despite the growing reliance on social media for cross-cultural interactions, there is a scarcity of applied studies investigating its role in promoting cultural understanding among students at King Saud University. In this context, the study aimed to identify the role of social media in enhancing intercultural understanding, in light of variables such as gender, academic level, and year of study. Additionally, the study sought to determine the nature of the relationship between the level of social media usage and its role in promoting intercultural understanding. The study adopted a descriptive approach, with a sample of 390 male and female students selected using a non-random sampling method from King Saud University students during the first semester of the 2025/2026 academic year. The study tool was developed based on intercultural communication theory, and its validity and reliability were verified, with Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients ranging from 0.87 to 0.93. The results revealed that the role of social media in promoting intercultural understanding was rated highly. The most significant role was in promoting intercultural interaction and dialogue (mean = 3.803), followed by building shared cultural awareness (mean = 3.738), fostering empathy between cultures (mean = 3.620), promoting openness between cultures (mean = 3.618), and enhancing intercultural interaction (mean = 3.611). The findings also showed a statistically significant positive correlation between the level of social media usage and its role in enhancing intercultural understanding, with a correlation coefficient of 0.643, which was significant at (p < 0.01). Furthermore, significant differences (p = 0.05) were found between the average responses of the study sample members attributed to the gender variable in favor of males according to the results of the t-test, and to the academic year variable according to the results of the one-way analysis of variance in favor of fourth-year students.