The main research issue of the report is to assess the nature, direction and intensity of the influence of network political Internet communication and the priority receipt of political information from online sources on the system of ideological values of youth and the characteristics of their political behavior. The report analyzes the data of two mass youth surveys conducted by the authors in 2018 and 2019. The sample size in both studies was 1,000 respondents; quota sample with control of parameters of gender, age, education, region, type of settlement; the method of collecting information was personal standardized interview. Additionally, the research deals with the features of political communication of youth in the Internet. The research was financially supported by the grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research No. 18-011-01184 “The Potential of Youth Political Leadership in the Course of Political Socialization and Circulation of the Elites in the Russian Regions in the 2010s (on the example of South-West Siberia and the North-West of the Russian Federation)”, 2018-2020. work was conducted with support of RFBR grant №16-36-60035 “The research of social efficiency of e-participation portals in Russia”.
The thesis about the influence of mass media on the political behavior of citizens since the 1950s is obvious and not in need of confirmation [18; 16]. However, there are issues to clarify in connection with the emergence of new communication channels and a change in the audience of various media both online and offline, as well as political socialization of new generations. Which channels of receiving political information for youth are currently in the highest priority? Which of them have lost their significance? Is there a link between the priority media and mass communication, and specific forms of political behavior? What channels of political information
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Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). should political consultants and political technologists pay special attention to in order to try, more or less effectively, to correct the political activity of youth?
The base of the empirical component of the research is a solid and fundamental theoretical platform related to determining the role and place of the youth part of society in the social and political process.Thus, the studies analyzing the political culture of young people [1; 8; 34]; problems of state regulation of youth politics [10; 35]; existence and orientation of social ties among young people [14; 29]; interaction of different youth cultures and subcultures [22]; youth electoral intents [20]; features of its political behavior [31]; youth leadership [3; 13; 27] as well as the latest works on the features of political mobilization through the Internet [19; 26; 32; 30] allow to conclude on the effectiveness of using the proposed tools with the construction of appropriate conjugation tables for conclusions on the peculiarities of assessing the future of young people. Especially since these conclusions, in our opinion, are possible to extrapolate to Russia as a whole, as the study took place in different both in urban and rural areas of the Russian Federation.
The change and formation of the most diverse forms of political behavior and political activity of citizens due to the constant development of the institution of the state as such, and, ultimately, the constant formation of subjectivity and independence of society; more rationalization of the political process and the growing importance of legitimizing the political system through political participation are points to remember. The traditional forms of political behavior include electoral activity; participation in political campaigns; conventional interaction with state authorities and local selfgovernment; various political organizations, and personal contacts with various actors; participation in legal actions, etc. Herein, the traditional set of various forms of political behavior closely relates to the sociocultural context and characteristics of the political regime in a particular society, a specific space and time.
The transition from traditional forms of activity to new forms of “direct” participation [7], related, among other things, to self-identification and political consciousness must be considered exactly in this context. This determines the choice of representatives of young people playing a significant role in changing socio-political processes, both as a subject and as an object of management as the object of research.
From a practical point of view, the study of sustainability, as well as the dynamics of the models of political behavior of Russian youth, including the Internet space, should provide additional opportunities for more efficient prediction of the degree of political activity and analysis of the laws of political behavior of youth.
The theory of political activity (political communication is undoubtedly a part of such activity) of citizens belongs to the category of traditional issues in the social sciences all over the world. 1
Political scientists, political psychologists, and political sociologists last few decades have actively studied the characteristics of political behavior, fixing the diversity of forms of political actions, their intensity and frequency.
Among the latest research on the topic: the coverage of global leadership in a communication context [21; 24]; a fundamental comparison of models of youth political leadership emerging in various types of societies [1; 6; 17]; and states with different political regimes [12], as well as in the face of serious world crises, one of which is happening right before our eyes [11; 23]. Also there is a discussion around the need to modify typologies of political behavior in the context of the new reality of online communication and the intensification of political processes [9; 5; 13; 15]; the growth of society’s demand for effective management system with considering the specifics of subjects and management objects [33], and power institutions on political innovation.
Scientists discuss an objective request to study motivation of youth to participate in public and political projects in leadership positions, as well as the principles of organizing work within youth movements and organizations [3; 28]. The issue of cooptation technologies for youth from among civil activists and people with high rates of political participation remains relevant [2; 4].
Summarizing a brief review of research on the topic, the youth consciousness, in the framework of manifesting its political behavior in various forms, is quite structured and classified. This allows to proceed to the empirical part of the study, relying on a combination of systems and integrated approaches, hence realizing the main objective of the study, consisting not only in clarifying the questions of the beginning of the article, but in classifying the main mechanisms of youth political communication. Such a classification can be used in both academic and practical activities, adjusting accordingly regional and federal youth policy.
At the same time, in order to obtain the clearest picture of the importance of Internet sources for the formation of political behavior of young people, first, we will focus on information about the nature of the use of the Internet. Materials of the research project “Prospects of educational model of free arts and sciences in the light of economic and sociocultural trends of the XXI century in the Russian context” (2018, All-Russian study of youth, sample size of 1530 students of all stages of education; Research carried out by scientists of SPbSU, project manager D. I. Raskin) give detailed information about the nature of behavior of student youth of Russia in the Internet space.
The priority in using the Internet by students is finding information and communicating online. Daily 93% of students use Internet resources to find information, read news, 3.2% do it 4-5 days a week. Communication in social networks takes place daily in 88.6%, 4-5 days a week - in 4.6% of students. The messengers daily use 79.9% of students, 4-5 days a week - 5.5%. Noteworthy is the search for information from young people directly using electronic versions of books and articles not connected. Daily 42.7% of students access Internet resources for reading books, 25.4% do so every 4-5 days a week, 14.3% - 2-3 days a week. Every day 40.6% of students use Internet resources to watch films, 17.6% - 4-5 days a week, 15.9% - 2-3 days a week.
Students deliberately walk away from answering a question about attitudes to Internet games. About 46% avoided the answer, saying that they could not assess the periodicity of their own game online; just under 5% simply refused to answer this question. About 26% said they do no more than once a month and only about 13% admitted playing Internet games daily or 4-5 days a week. We have no reason to believe that for employed, self-employed or unemployed youth, the time resource coincides with the indicators of student youth in terms of reading books (it is slightly lower) and playing online (students tend to consider this time to be discrediting them). In any case, online communication for all groups of young people is extremely significant and takes a significant resource of time. 2
The report analyzes the data of two mass youth surveys conducted by the authors in 2018 and 2019. The sample size in both studies was 1,000 respondents; quota sample with control of parameters of gender, age, education, region, type of settlement; the method of collecting information was personal standardized interview. Moreover, the features of political communication of youth in the Internet were analyzed. The studies were conducted and the report was prepared as part of the implementation of the RFBR grant, predicted the potential of youth political leadership (on the example of South-West Siberia and the North-West of the Russian Federation in 2018–2020).
A study of young people in four Russian regions (Altay Territory, Leningrad and Novosibirsk Regions, St. Petersburg) in 2018 and 2019 showed that only 2.3% of residents between the ages of 14 and 30 do not use any sources to obtain political information. Almost 98% receive this information. In many cases, it is not a question of purposeful search for political news, as the information policy of the media online and offline, interpersonal communication turn a person sometimes simply into a recipient of the information stream. 3
As part of the data analysis, the variables related to the main types of information sources involved by youth, the degree of interest in these sources, the experience of conventional and non-conventional policies, as well as the index of youth political activity were the subjects of analysis. Together with the simple distribution and construction of contingency tables, we use elements of factor analysis and analysis of standardized residues, which, in our opinion, together allow to draw quite reasonable and valid conclusions.
As the table. 1 data show, the leaders in bringing political information to young people are information Internet resources, news feeds, videos, etc. and social networks and instant messengers. At the same time, more than half of young people (51%) use all forms of online sources to receive political news, 19.3% use only Internet information resources, news feeds, videos, etc., 17.4% use only social networks and instant messengers; 12.3% of youth do not use these resources at all. Compared to the results of 2018, the distribution data for 2019 show that such sources of information as social networks and instant messengers (growth by 2.4%), physical environment (friends and acquaintances (+ 3.8%), and also relatives (+6.6)), radio (+ 1.9%), traditional print media (regional and local newspapers (+ 1.8%), as well as the central press (+ 0.1%) have increased; and vice versa, young people began to use such sources as information Internet resources (drop by 4.4%), television (central (–2.4%) and local (–0.2%), scientific literature (–1.0%) as well as party published I and propaganda materials (-0.4%) less.
The gender factor does not affect the priority of sources of political information; some differences in other socio-demographic characteristics are recorded. Young people from 18 to 21 with incomplete higher education, 1st – 3rd year university students, and residents of megacities are inclined to use all the options for obtaining political information online more than others obtain. The youngest people from 14 to 17, school students, people with incomplete secondary and primary vocational education prefer to use for these purposes only social networks and instant messengers. People officially employed from 26 to 30 largely focus only on Internet resources, news feeds, videos, etc. Young people from 26 to 30 with secondary vocational education, working informally, with a monthly income for each family member up to 10,000 rubles, residents of the countryside show a great tendency not to use online resources to get political information at all.
The status self-esteem of people with various types of obtaining political information online is quite interesting. Respondents who consider themselves to the upper layer prefer to obtain it only in networks and instant messengers; those of an intermediate layer tend not to use online resources for this purpose at all; people referring themselves to the layer between the middle and lower, use all types of online sources to receive political news.
Young people using all forms of online sources for receiving political news tend to rate their interest in political events in the world as quite high, and in political events Russia as very high. Citizens under 30, using only social networks and instant messengers to receive political news, tend to rate their interest in world events and political processes in their country as quite low. Fundamental differences in the level of interest in political events in their region and place of their residence, depending on the priority method of obtaining information, have not been identified. In all cases, people who are not interested in politics are not inclined to use any channels for obtaining information on this subject from the online space.
The thesis of the “party of television” and “party of the Internet” is fully justified in relation to youth. Those who do not use online resources to obtain political information at all tend to watch federal television channels (53.6% of the group; the statistically significant standardized balance is +2.0) or listen to the radio (16.8% of the group; the statistically significant standardized balance is +2.2).
Young people who use all forms of online political information sources are more inclined than other groups to read non-fiction (12.8% of the group; the statistically significant standardized balance is +3.4) and communicate on political topics with friends and acquaintances (52% of the group; the statistically significant standardized balance is +3.7) on these topics. This group is more skeptical about the prospects for changing the quality of life (21.3% of the group; the statistically significant standardized balance is +2.1). The explanatory ability of the calculated model of factor analysis of sources for political information for young people with a high level of political activity is 70.71%. Because of factor analysis, including all the sources of information on politics used by young people (Table 2), three factors were formed.
Factor 1 “Printed Products” combined party literature, campaign materials, regional and local newspapers, central newspapers, non-fiction.
Factor 2 “Traditional channels of television and radio information” has recorded the delimitation of traditional non-print media and Internet information resources.
Factor 3 “Online Personal Communication Circle” has included communication in social networks of not only friends and acquaintances, but also relatives. Although the analysis showed that this youth group with high rates of involvement in political activity uses all sources of political information, the traditional media and communication with relatives have the greatest impact. The political mobilization of young people is easier under the influence of network communication with friends and political advertising materials than under the influence of scientific analytical materials printed in the traditional way or obtained from virtual space.
Contrary to popular beliefs in social circles, social networks, instant messengers, and Internet channels in general have less mobilization ability to form a stable model of active political behavior. They work well to mobilize young people for one-time “high-profile” actions, but in the end, they are inferior to more traditional sources of information.
The analysis of the level of youth’s interest in world and Russian political events, depending on the preference of various types of online sources is also of considerable interest. From the presented data (Tables 3 and 4) it can be seen that in the question of correlation of the level of youth interest in political events in the world and in Russia, and the types of various online sources, the following results can be recorded. There is a direct connection between the manifested sufficient interest in world events and the substantial interest in Russian events, and the declaration of the use of all forms of online sources to receive political news (the statistically significant standardized balances are +2.3 and +1.9, respectively), as well as a manifestation of weak interest in Degree of interest Very interested I’m rather interested in Rather, not interested Not interested at all Difficult to answer Total 11,2 21,6 -3,5 24,8 27,2 +5,1 15,2 +5,3 100,0
Uses only social networks and instant messengers to receive political news 7,4 –2,2 38,6 35,2 +1,8 14,8 4,0 100,0
Uses all forms of online sources to receive political news 15,1 48,7 +2,3 26,5 6,8 -3,2 2,9 –2,0 100,0
Total 13,4 42,2 27,9 11,6 4,8 100,0 Doesn’t use resources online for political information at all
Uses only Internet sites to receive political news 15,8 41,3 27,0 11,7 4,1 100,0 policy and use only social networks and instant messengers (the statistically significant standardized balances are +1.8 and +3.1, respectively).
A high correlation between ignoring world political events and the declaration of nonuse of online resources for obtaining political information (the statistically significant standardized balances are +5.1 and +6.1, respectively), and the presence of negative feedback in intuitive cases is self-evident. Finally, data on the political practices of youth with various priority sources for obtaining political information online is of particular interest. We see that the level of political involvement of Russian citizens under 30 who receive political information online is higher than those who do not use virtual space for these purposes (Table 5). The only exception is participation in the elections. Over the past 2-3 years, 35.9% of all youth voted in the elections, including 44% who do not use the Internet as a source of political information, as well as 36% of young people who use all the information capabilities of the online space.
Because of the grouping of the data of the 2019 study (Table 6), four youth groups were identified that differ in the degree of potential and actual political activity. Potential political activity is absent in 14.7% of young people, low – in 44.5%, medium – in 29%, high – in 11.8%. Realized political activity is absent in 34.6% of youth, low – in 55.5%, medium – in 7.8%, high – in 2.1%. Thus, there is a high indicator of the unrealized political activity of young people, as well as a low indicator of the number of those who are actively involved in the political life of our state (the political activity of only one in ten can be estimated as medium or high). 100,0 The Table. 7 presents statistically significant standardized residuals that fix the presence of stable indicators of the joint occurrence of various forms of political behavior. Usually, voters, as well as young people applying to government bodies, usually participate in unauthorized protests, financially help politicians and support their projects, discuss political events on social networks and repost political information not quite systematically, but rather spontaneously and situationally. Practicing the same way in public organizations has the only difference: they tend to financially support the projects of politicians and respond to various fundraising campaigns. For youth representatives participating in the elections, participation in authorized strikes, rallies and demonstrations is situational. A similar situational behavior is characteristic of youth representatives working in public organizations regarding participation in unauthorized protests, and for workers in political parties - regarding political activity on social networks. Absence of negative relationship between the forms of political behavior is important to note.
We see that the level of real political activity of gender groups in the youth environment is not different. At the same time, among young people who do not take part in political life, as expected, people under 18 with primary and incomplete secondary education, school and college students (technical schools, colleges) predominate (statistically significant standardized balances are + 5.2, +5.7, +4.9, +1.8, respectively); among people with low political activity – young people 26 to 30, as well as university students (the statistically significant standardized balances are +1.7, +1.7, respectively), with average political activity – higher education holders, officially employed (working with registration under the contract and entering data into the workbook), as well as owners of monthly incomes up to 10,000 rubles per family member, subjectively referring to the intermediate between the middle and lower social stratum or directly to the lower layer (the statistically significant standardized balance are +2.7 , +2.2, + 2.1, +1.9, +1.8, +1.9).
The special socio-demographic profile of young people with a high degree of political activity is poorly visible, but among them there is a higher proportion of officially employed young people; in addition, young people from the Novosibirsk region are more involved in politics among the surveyed regions (senior balances are +2.9, +2.1, respectively). It is important that, contrary to popular beliefs, there were no significant differences in the political activity of young people living in different types of settlements, with the only exception: in small cities, young people are slightly more inclined to show a low level of involvement in political life (the statistically significant standardized balance is +1.6).
The data presented in the article, in our opinion, correspond to an understanding of the close interconnection of forms of political participation, sources and degree of interest in political information and political behavior as a condition for a significant impact of participation on real political processes of such an important social group of any society as youth. There are undoubted different points of view on the degree of significance of this social group for people who directly make decisions at a particular moment in the development of society, and, moreover, in the face of heterogeneous social and political conditions in such a complex country as the Russian Federation, it is quite problematic to extrapolate the data to the entire public space of our country. Nevertheless, we argue that the conclusions presented below are not only a case for describing the situation in four specific regions, but can be used and involved in making decisions on adjusting youth policy nationwide.
In the course of the research, we present the following conclusions: (