Political expectations of Russian youth in social media discourses: the specifics of representation

The article is devoted to the issue of identifying the main discourses in social media that reflect the political expectations of Russian youth. In the context of the increasing importance of social networks in communications and socialization of young people, media content and information presentation formats provide researchers with the opportunity to study minimally censored material. The relevance of the research is related to the fact that the political consciousness of Russian youth today is characterized by extreme heterogeneity, variability of value-semantic constructs, turbulence of political sentiments and is in the stage of active political and psychological transformation. The purpose of the study is to identify and interpret the socio-media discourses of youth communities, reflecting short- and medium-term expectations in the political sphere.

The authors examined Russian-language Telegram channels to study social media discourses. The Telegram messenger was chosen due to the fact that it is the most popular and widespread communication space for political activity among Russian youth. During the study of the Telegram publications array, the authors used the method of discourse analysis by E. Laclos – S. Mouff. As a result of the research, the authors identified and detailed five key discourses reflecting the political expectations of young people in modern Russia. It was revealed that these discourses are characterized by a high level of semantic fragmentation, amorphousness and weak psycho-emotional polarization. The authors concluded that the dominant position in a wide conglomerate of diverse social media discourses targeted to young audience is occupied by the demand for socio-political predictability and normalization of the foreign policy situation around Russia.

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