How Russian Youth Consume Information: Case Study of the Political Science Students of the Financial University

This article is devoted to analyzing the results of a study conducted by the Educational and Scientific Laboratory of Internet Projects and Studies of the Department of Political Science and Mass Communications of the Financial University among university students. The work aimed to identify the characteristics and structure of youth information consumption in the digital space during the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors analyzed the intensity and frequency of use of various types of information sources, identified the dominant sources of socio-political information, determining the level of trust in them, identified factors that affect the perception of message content. The article also analyzes the attitude of the respondents to the issue of Internet regulation by the state, defines and structures the subjective assessments of the “opposition” of the Internet space concerning existing government institutions. The paper concludes that the structure of the information consumption of the respondents shows a steady shift in the emphasis on information and communication activity of young people to digital platforms, sources, and channels. The youth audience spends a significant part of their active time in the digital space, which in its volume is comparable or even in many cases exceeds the amount of time spent in the traditional offline space. The consequence of this is the formation of “digital information overload”, stimulating the development and consolidation of the effect of clip consciousness. In general, based on the results of the work, the authors conclude that there is a stable structure of youth information consumption that has pronounced differences from the traditional structure of information consumption of older generations. Moreover, the processes of information consumption in the digital space are mostly irrational, and they are mainly based on “digital habits” that form the models of digital information consumption of modern students.