The Level of Education and Digital Political Culture: Facing the 2019 Election in Mengkudu Bay, North Sumatra

The level of education influences knowledge, attitudes and political evaluations in the face of the 2019 General Election. In the digital era, the General Election is a means of persuasively determining candidates through digital communication to shape political behavior, namely the orientation of a typical attitude towards candidates. This study aims to discuss and understand the level of education and the digital political culture in fishing communities facing the General Election in 2019. The fundamental problem of this study is formulated in the question: is it true that the level of education influences political culture in the digital era? The assumption of this study states that the level of education greatly contributes to the political culture in the digital era. Explaining this problem is used the theory of Almonds and Verbs. The subject of this study was fishing communities in the village of Sialang Buah, Mengkudu bay sub-district, Serdang Bedagei district, North Sumatra province. The research data was collected through questionnaires and in-depth interviews. The questionnaires were distributed to 50 families containing 7 dimensions of democratic values with 4 alternative choices. The answers were analyzed based on the Likert Scale. The findings of this study are that the level of education contributes to the low level of digital political culture and the digital political culture more determined by patrons through the closeness of religion. This novelty confirms the tendency of the parochial political culture of fishing communities in the digital era. Digital political culture facing the General Election in 2019 is still focused on the religious line, namely the voting behavior characterized by nationalist-religious.