Media Consumption by Studying Youth: Results of a Survey in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don

The article presents the results of a survey conducted among students of higher education institutions of three Russian cities with over a million people-Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, and Rostov-on-Don. The total number of respondents is 989. 519 respondents are representatives of Moscow universities, 289 respondents are students of Nizhny Novgorod higher education institutions, and 181 study in Rostov-on-Don. The respondents are 16to 31 years old. The largest group of respondents is students aged 18 to 19 (653 people, or 66%). The gender distribution of the participants is approximately equal: 497 males and 492 females took part in the study. The questions concerned both the identification of the volume and characteristics of youth consumption of certain mass media channels (television, radio, print media, Internet media, social networks, messengers), and the reasons that encourage students to consume a particular media resource or, on the contrary, not to use it. The study revealed that the Internet and social networks occupy a leading place in the structure of youth media consumption, while traditional media either do not attract the interest of the younger generation or are consumed on occasion or in the background. The smartphone is the key access device to satisfy the needs of young people; social networks represent the dominant type of media. As a result, it was possible to determine the motivation structure of media consumption, in which the key positions are occupied by the needs determined by the social nature of a person-socialization and self-actualization. The process of media socialization realizes as a hybrid form of socialization of the modern person. On the one hand, media socialization is the mediation of social norms and values of the real world; on the other hand, it is the creation of norms and values, the immanent essence of which is potentially possible only in the media space. There were also entertainment, information, education, and instrumentation needs. Each of the needs is not always “closed”, because it tends to get closer to other groups. At the same time, media needs are not exclusively related to information requests of the audience. Today’s media not only broadcast institutional norms and values but also form and reproduce non-institutional norms and values through “opinion leaders” and agents of influence integrated into the digital media infrastructure. As a result, the problem of digital media literacy and information security of the “digital generation” is particularly relevant, the issue of critical analysis of the digital media environment and knowledge about the nature of media will determine the trajectory of its socialization.

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