Mediatization of communications as a factor of transformation of value orientations of Russian youth: Trends and risks (part 2)

Abstract

The article continues the empirical analysis of the influence of mediatization on the formation of value orientations of modern Russian youth. In the first part of the article, the search for theoretical grounds for studying the virtual projection of politics was problematized, the portrait of “digital aborigines” or “generation of 3C millennials” was conceptualized in political-axiological optics. The study reveals the basic value characteristics and potentially conflicting contradictions as a result of the influence of the rapid spread of new media on the audience of modern Russian youth. In the course of the analysis, a fundamentally new knowledge was obtained, based on a holistic vision of the cultural and historical reality of the formation of a “digital society” in Russia, about the axiological features of the modern Russian social order, including a complexly structured set of moral values of youth. The study included two trajectories of empirical analysis: conducting focus groups to identify and scientifically interpret trends in the formation of content preferences of the younger generation in the discourse of the use of new media, as well as monitoring social networks in order to mark popular communication platforms among young people, evaluating the most effective methods of information impact, broadcasting axiological discourses and articulation generated in them risks. To achieve the set scientific objectives, the authors of the study conceptualized the theoretical constructions of the specifics of new media in modern conditions, presented popular axiological trends identified as a result of qualitative content analysis of blogs in social networks. The results obtained are correlated with other fundamental studies of Russian scientists studying the problems of youth values in various academic planes, in order to search for correlations and assess the complementarity of conclusions for the subsequent increment of political science knowledge. As a result of the analysis, not only trends in the transformation of values of modern Russian youth are articulated, but also strategic risks determined by the mediatization of communications of the studied age cohort. In this regard, the article develops a model for measuring and preventing the risks of political and axiological transformations among Russian youth based on the development of complementary methods of their assessment for the construction and implementation of effective state strategies in terms of their change and improvement.