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

In the coordinates of an ever-changing social space (in the context of a pandemic, globalization and digitalization), young people are undergoing a transformation of ideas about the country and the world, socio-cultural and political orientations, citizenship. The problems of representation of civic-patriotic attitudes, value orientations and patriotic self-determination in the minds of young people are actively discussed, however, there is a lack of research related to the value-semantic and motivational sphere of a person actively involved in civil-political activity. Today, it is particularly relevant to study the response or emotional, cognitive, behavioral reactions of young people (including the forms of participation of young people in various socio-political events) to socio-political events / situations / decisions in society. In this regard, in various fields of scientific knowledge (sociology, political science, pedagogy, psychology), there is a variety of objects and subjects of research: political culture of youth (I.A. Tyutkova, A.V. Ivashchenko, A.A. Kazakov) ^[7-8]; political competence of youth (I.A. Batanina, A.A. Lavrikova, O.E. Shumilova) ^[3]; political behavior, activity and participation of citizens (A.V. Andreenkova) ^[2]; political identity and civic position. In foreign studies, civil-political activity and position are studied through the formation of service to society among young people ^[16] and social responsibility ^[20], the involvement of students in self-government ^[13], the development of universal values ^[18], consideration of cultural diversity and tolerance ^[15], the development of legal ^[9] and political culture ^[19], taking into account the national ^[11] and cultural characteristics of the country and region ^[14].

The study of the problem of civil and political activity of young people in the digital environment is becoming relevant to the issues of security, manipulative communication and destructive behavior. The authors consider the problem of the manifestation of destructive forms of civil and political activity under the influence of manipulative technologies, which are actively implemented by various media (Demyanenko N. V.) ^[6]. The problematization of the abuse of manipulative technologies in the digital space is raised by both domestic and foreign authors (N. Hara, M.R. Sanfilippo, S.V. Volodenkov, S.N. Fedorchenko, A.V. Vilovatykh) [4-5; 12]. Thus, studies of the relationship of digital media with political activism and large-scale social protests are becoming a popular agenda of the international scientific community (Chen, Chan, & Lee, 2016; Shmargad Y., Klar S, 2019) ^{[10; 17]}.

Global changes and the complex and ambiguous situation in the world in all spheres of human life determine the transformation of value and semantic orientations, including political activity /activity of Russian youth, which, in turn, determines the need for research in this direction. The purpose of our research is to highlight the features of civil–political activity and to study the motives and ways of involving young people in offline and online practices of civil-political activity.

Sampling and research methods

The empirical base of the study was made up of students of higher educational institutions of Tomsk, a total of 639 (627 survey participants and 12 focus group participants) students of humanities, technical and natural science education profiles took part, of which female students made up 54%, male students - 46%. Data collection was carried out in 2021 through Internet platforms https://docs.google.com/forms / and Zoom, the average survey time took no more than 20 minutes, the focus group time was 2 hours.

The study used qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection followed by mathematical processing. At the first stage of the study, a focus group was conducted, on the basis of which questions for the questionnaire were developed. At the second stage of the study, an online survey was conducted using the author's questionnaire.

The focus group method. A focus group was organized, which was attended by 12 undergraduate students aged 17-19 who are active participants in civil and political activities at the level of their faculty/university/region. Group discussions were held online on the Zoom video conferencing platform and lasted 2 hours. The purpose of the focus group is to identify the features of the value-semantic and motivational spheres of youth that demonstrate pronounced civil and political activity, as well as to identify the ideas of young people about effective ways and difficulties of involving young people in constructive civil and political activities in modern realities of life.

Questionnaire survey. The questionnaire was developed according to the purpose and objectives of the study, included 35 questions that were aimed at studying the characteristics of civil and political activity of young people. The questionnaire included closed, semi-closed, open questions and questions-scores on the Likert scale.

Research results

General characteristics of civil and political activity of young people

As a result of the analysis of the focus group materials, it was revealed that for young people, civic and political activity is an opportunity, first of all, to understand and critically comprehend "the reality of political life and socio-political events/processes", "their rights and interests", "predict the consequences of their actions/choices". Secondly, it is an opportunity to perform actions of a socio-political nature: "to attract the attention of the state to solving various problems", "to promote their ideas /solutions in the context of improving the quality of life of the population". Thirdly, "involvement in various forms of political activity is the key to the formation of civic identity/unity." Young people associate the motives of civil and political activity with the opportunity to: change and improve the existing political situation in the country; resist the existing political regime; bring "necessity", "benefit" to people (change the quality of people's lives); gain status, influence, importance; become a political leader, deserving people's recognition. Young people associate difficulties of involvement in civil and political activities with insufficient formation of cognitive and motivational components. Among the main difficulties were highlighted: low involvement of young people in political life (the impossibility of real participation in the political life of the country and evaluation of the results of this participation); poor awareness of youth about events of a socio-political nature; weak interest and lack of understanding of the goals and importance of participation in the socio-political life of the country; weak awareness of the ideas of patriotism.

Next, a survey of young people was conducted. The study of the civil and political activity of young people from the perspective of political involvement and the manifestation of citizenship allowed us to identify the features of the activity of the survey participants, the forms of its manifestation, the motives of participation and the significance of civil and political activity for respondents. The majority of students (64%) are interested in the political life of Russia, but 48% of respondents accidentally learn about current political events through news and subscriptions.

Figure 1 shows the frequency of responses from young people about self-assessment of their civic competence, position and activity, as well as real involvement in various forms of civic and political activity (the upper column reflects positive responses, the lower – negative).

Figure 1 – Civil and political activity of young people

Slightly more than half of the survey participants rate themselves as citizens with developed civic competence and position, but the majority remain passive (66.5%). The most common form of participation in political life and the manifestation of their civic position are elections (47.5%), the second most popular choice of the answer is participation in youth movements (22%), participation in public organizations – 11% of young people, the least involvement was in political parties – only 7%. The protest potential of the study participants is within the values (12%) that have been recorded in recent years by various researchers ^[1]. In general, the survey showed a low level of civic and political activity of students (less than a third of respondents), while most noted the importance of its development among young people (89%). Noting the need to develop and implement programs aimed at involving young people in various forms of civic and political activity, students identify the most relevant institutions through which such programs can be implemented: 80% believe that educational institutions should be engaged in this, half of the participants believe that civil and political activity should be formed in the family or through specialized state organizations (53.5% and 51.5%, respectively), 40% of young people are ready to entrust such a function to opinion leaders and 34% to non-governmental structures.

According to the survey participants, the meanings of the development of civic and political activity for young people is the need for conscious participation in the political life of the country "to understand the political situation in the country; the opportunity to have an idea of the political situation in the country, to be able to analyze political meetings and events." And the motivation of civil and political activity of young people is determined mainly by romantic motives and patriotism "to help everyone in need; I want to be useful to my country and people; to do good, the main thing is to see people's smiles, patriotic feelings and hope for improving the lives of people in my country" and aspirations (needs) for changes "the opportunity to influence development cities and regions; bring certain changes to the country." The meanings of civic and political activity and the motives for participation in it are characterized by young people quite positively, the reverse situation is observed in determining the attitude to the political system and its role in the life of the younger generation. Thus, the attitudes of the study participants towards politics are characterized by low trust and a critical attitude: "a dirty sphere where money decides everything; an intricate, complex and corrupt system; a way of tightening the screws; unfair play", neutral characteristics are associated with an attempt to determine what politics is: "science that studies the laws of government; state actions; the art of governing the state; the form of relations and communication between the state and its citizens," and the third group of answers reflects the complexity and uncertainty of the political structure: "a complex area, something incomprehensible, an abstract concept, a very confused system."

Civil and political activity of young people on the Internet

The growing importance of the Internet space of social media and social networks for young people also determines the growth of their influence on the values, meanings and attitudes of young people, this is also legitimate in relation to the civil-political position or activity. This fact determined the second focus of our research. Figure 2 shows the usual practices of civil and political activity of young people in the Internet environment.

Figure 2 – Civil and political activity of young people in the Internet environment

Despite the fact that almost half of the respondents (56.6%) use forums, groups of political content in order to keep abreast of the latest developments, they take a passive position, which is characterized mainly by obtaining information (consumption). Thus, only 24.3% are interested in the election campaign, 28.3% of young people are interested in political figures, while 47.5% of respondents participate in the elections. Almost a third of the study participants (28.3%) use social networks to attract other users to problems of political content through posts and reposts of relevant articles, 34.4% of respondents agitate other users to take part in certain political events. There is an increase in popularity among young people of such forms of civil and political activity as online petitions (38.4% of respondents participated) and online rallies, protests, boycotts (28.4%). For comparison, only 12% of respondents participated in such forms offline.

The correlation of answers to questions about the assessment of their civil-political position and competence with various forms of civil-political activity has shown that those who considered themselves with a developed civil-political position/competence are more likely to monitor political events, unlike young people with an "undeveloped" civil-political position/competence (31% and 20%, respectively, ?2 = 19.69, p=0.05). Young people with an "undeveloped" civil-political position/competence are less likely to make posts and reposts with political content (37% vs. 26%, ?2=58.6245, p= 0.00); less likely to participate in signing online petitions (35% vs. 19.6%, ?2= 59.3313, p=0.00).

The survey participants see stimulating the interest of young people in civil and political activities and involving young people in it through the popularization of political life and events in the Internet environment. The digital space has the necessary conditions and is the most preferred platform for communication, information notification and the manifestation of new forms of civic and socio-political activity. Figure 3 shows the main ways of developing civil and political youth through Internet resources. 

Figure 3 – Ways to develop civil and political activity on the Internet

The survey participants referred to the most effective ways of involving young people in civil and political activities through the Internet space:

– creation of modern youth content that will be accessible and interesting to position the values of inclusion in the political life of the country and the formation of a civic position;

– involvement of youth opinion leaders/well-known bloggers in the political problems of society and civil initiatives;

– creation of platforms (for) and mechanisms of communication between government representatives and young people, where the latter will have the opportunity to express their opinions and take part in the implementation of real state projects (for example, at the volunteer level);

– development of a system of encouragement in schools/universities for participation in civil and political activities;

– creation of platforms (forums/communities) for free discussion of current civil and political problems of society with the possibility of uniting young people into communities without strict regulation "from above".

Main conclusions

The civic and political activity of youth is one of the urgent research problems that is directly related to the development of negative (destructive) orientations of youth as a result of socio-economic changes and aggravation of social contradictions as a result of instability of sense–forming ideals, loss of identity (including civil), change of values in public and individual consciousness. This problem has become especially relevant in the light of recent events in Russian (and world) reality (unauthorized rallies, the use of children and youth in political games, increased interest in protest actions).

The results of the study made it possible to clarify a number of significant issues: there is a rather positive picture regarding the understanding by young people of the importance of being involved in socio-political events and decisions in their country; to understand the determining grounds of political processes, but at the same time, young people demonstrate insufficient readiness for various socio-political activities, for example, the most common form of activity continues remain voting in the elections. Although in the realities of large-scale digitalization in all spheres of life, it is the Internet environment that seems to be a serious platform for the manifestation of various forms of civil and political activity. According to the results obtained, only 20 to 30% of all study participants show various civil and political activity in the digital space, the rest demonstrate a passive position. The factors (barriers) that prevent the expression of civil and political activity of young people are: negative attitudes towards the political situation and the real possibility of changing something, the closeness (inaccessibility and inaccessibility) of representatives of real political power for young people, the lack of accessible and reliable information about the political institution, the lack of mechanisms for communication and interaction between politicians and youth.