Manifestation of interest of the Russian youth for politicized content on the Internet: towards the holistic analytical model

Abstract

This article is written in the theoretical-methodological genre. The key goal lies in the revision and systematization of versatile analytical hypotheses proposed by social and human science in order to explain the interest of Russian youth in politicized information content on the Internet. It is noted that the current analytical practice faces a fundamental contradiction between the prevalence of reflections of the scholars on the significant role of the Internet in development of the political moods and attitudes of the Russian youth audience and the absence  the well-established scientific representation on the reasons why there is a need to search  for political information namely on the Internet. This article aims to clarify this contradiction. Theoretical-methodological analysis is conducted on the disparate ideas used by social and human science to explain and interpret the heighted interest of Russian youth in the online politicized content. Procedurally, the work leans on the analysis of relevant current scientific literature for the period from 2015 to 2020 dedicated to examination of the patterns of Internet behavior and political culture of modern Russian youth. The conclusion is made that there are several versions that explain the heightened interest of Russian youth in politicized information on the Internet, which logically correspond with each other, but are usually not being generalized. Having summarized these versions into a single analytical model, the authors indicate the key reason for the heightened interest of Russian youth in political information on the Internet is the low level of trust in the traditional media, which forces them to seek the alternative sources of information on topics of concern online.