YouTube Bloggers as Agents of Political Socialization of Russian Pupils

Abstract

The article discusses the influence of contemporary Russian YouTube bloggers on the political views of school students. Based on the analysis of quantitative (survey of adolescents, N=500) and qualitative (257 in-depth interviews) data, the article identifies the authors of the most popular YouTube channels as well as analyses the reasons for their popularity, including the key factor based on their tactics of building trustful relationship with their audience. The second part of the article examines the content of popular videos taking into account its political context. Although most of the videos popular among pupils contain entertaining and comic content, bloggers repeatedly appeal to political topics in their comments and remarks. All the political content can be categorized as follows: reaction to the current political context, the image of modern Russia and its problems, as well as the views on patriotic education. The videos of YouTube bloggers cause a strong emotional response among young people for several reasons: they address adolescents’ issues of concern and appeal to values shared by teenagers: accessible education, fight against corruption, ecology, pacifism.

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