Civil-political activity of youth: general characteristics and peculiarities of its manifestation in the Internet environment

Abstract

The subject of this research is the peculiarities of civil-political activity of youth. The relevance is substantiated by instability of meaning-forming ideals, loss of identity (including civil) by young people, change of values in public and individual consciousness in the conditions of social transformation and sociopolitical contradictions. Emphasis is places on people’s interaction with the dynamic and rapidly changing world in the era of digitalization, globalization, and sociopolitical instability, which entails the emergence of destructive manifestations in various forms of civil-political activity. The goal lies in determination of the peculiarities of civil-political activity and examination of the motives and methods of engaging youth in offline and online practices of civil-political activity. The empirical base of this research involves 639 university students in the city of Tomsk. The acquired result elucidate a range of important issues regarding the desire of young people to be engaged in political life of the country and show interest in political events. The article outlines the main forms of civil-political activity, most common of which are voting in elections, participation in online petitions and online protests. The article considers the most effective practices of online civil-political activity from the perspective of youth: creation of content on political topic, involvement of young influencers to political issues, inclusion of youth in solution of socially and politically important issues of society and rewarding them for being active, establishment of independent youth communities for free communication on political topics, etc.