Towards Socio-Political Values of Russian Youth: a Media Centered Approach

Section: Theory of Journalism and Media

Modern Russian youth is becoming the most vulnerable part of Russian society: the political, economic and cultural transformations have a powerful impact on the formation of the personality of young citizens and their values. The media as the main platform for the political socialization of modern youth has an obvious value-forming potential; it significantly influences the forms and directions of integration behaviour and lifestyles of the younger generation. Young people shape the space of life and activity around them on the basis of a complex system of values based on individual preferences, ideals, symbols and reference points, while linking it to the global socio-political field and localizing it often in the media and communication space, including the space of social networks. The ongoing transformations enable one to speak about the relevance of studying the socio-political values of young people in the framework of the media-centric paradigm. The study of socio-political values is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach: an issue is of interest in the context of philosophical, cultural, sociological, political science and psychological research. However, recent studies in political science, psychology and media communication have shown that the younger generation is largely oriented towards the values of self-expression and self-actualization, using the media communication space rather than the real communication space. The experience of Russia and other countries demonstrates that the last decade has seen a significant increase in the involvement of young people in global issues. However, despite the active growth of media activism, interest in political events and politics in general in Russian youth groups is still not pronounced enough and is often accompanied by a lack of critical thinking skills and a tendency to borrow assessments from older generations. This article attempts to theorise the values of Russian youth and analyse the ways and mechanisms of their transmission in the digital media environment. The materials obtained will help to analyse the ways and trajectories of disseminating information about current socio-political and cultural events in the social media space in the next stage of the study.

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