Youth Social Activists in the Media Environment

The article considers the role of social activity of young people implemented through the media space. The issues of volunteer activities in the virtual space are studied, allowing to judge the prospects for changing social communications and transforming everyday life through the prism of the virtual space of the media environment. Domestic and foreign areas of studying the media environment are analyzed as indicators of diff erent strategies for the development of social activity. Among domestic studies, the following are distinguished: digital volunteering, crisis communications, media communications of social activists; in foreign studies, the areas of research of technologies of prosocial impact of the media space on social activity, the features of the work of non-profit organizations in the virtual space and the analysis of the growth of social activism on digital platforms in diff erent contexts of social activity are designated. The presented areas intersect the approaches of social participation by E. Goldman, the network theory by M. Castells and the joint production of D. Abeysaker, Abeysekera which allow us to explain the emerging forms and strategies of media communication and the prospects for the development of social activists in the media environment. The purpose of the work is to study the self-assessment of the possibilities of implementing youth social activism in the media environment of the cities of Siberia and the Far East. The research methods are the content analysis of media resources and expert interviews with social activists. Based on the content analysis of media resources (n=5,688), the mechanism for describing a problem that requires the manifestation of social activity of youth communities in the media environment, the actions of volunteers refl ected in the media space, the result of their activities and the post-event description in the media environment are studied. An assessment of the development of the media space is carried out, and, based on expert semi-structured interviews (n=26), an assessment of the development of the media environment in the practices of social activism is given, where a stable need for the formation of public opinion on the possibilities of real assistance of social activists through the media space, increasing their own social capital is recorded. The prospects for research into the social activity of young people are monitoring their inclusion in the media environment, forms and methods of recording information, techniques for infl uencing public consciousness, modeling social sentiments and other forms of social management of public opinion

Digital media · Media relations · Prosocial behavior · Social change · Social media · Social space · Virtual space · Discourse Analysis and Cultural Communication · Social and Behavioral Studies · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia