The role of social and communication technologies in transforming the political consciousness of young people in modern Ukraine
Students Name: Luchechko Yuliia Bohdanivna
Qualification Level: magister
Speciality: Sociology
Institute: Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Mode of Study: part
Academic Year: 2022-2023 н.р.
Language of Defence: ukrainian
Abstract: The political consciousness of young people undergoes transformational processes during the period of great changes in the state, in situations of choice. Choice is the result of social relations, it is socially determined. Modern social and communication technologies have a significant impact on the consciousness of young people due to their comprehensive penetration into the life of society. We were interested in the question of how the political consciousness of young people was transformed in the period from the elections of 2019 to 2022, and what place do social and communication technologies occupy in this process?" Because during the active phase of the election campaign from 05/24/2019 to 07/15/2019, 40,427 advertising posts of a political nature were published on the Facebook social network. The Servant of the People political party spent more than $47,000 on Facebook advertising and, surprisingly, Volodymyr Zelenskyy received the most support from the youngest category of voters. People under the age of 30 voted the most (80%) for V. Zelenskyi. (Research of the public organization OPORA, 2019). And monitoring the activity of young people and political subjects in the media space of 2022 during the war, the study of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology commissioned by the Civil Network OPORA shows that since the beginning of the large-scale aggression, the Telegram messenger has become the leading source of information for Ukrainians, followed by Instagram. Social networks were the most popular source of information over the past two months: 76.6% of Ukrainians use them to get news. The purposes of our research were: 1. Identifying the peculiarities of the political consciousness of modern youth. 2. Clarification of the ways of human awareness of the problems of forming political consciousness under the influence of social and communicative technologies. 3. Comparison of changes in the political consciousness of young people in the period between the 2019 elections and the 2022 war. Object (according to the criterion of the bearer of the problem): representatives of Ukrainian youth who made a political choice in the elections or showed political activity at other events. Object (according to the criterion of a general problem): transformation of the political consciousness of young people. Subject: social and communicative technologies as factors affecting the transformation of political consciousness. As a result of the analysis of the obtained results, we came to the conclusion that: - young people feel a great dependence on various external factors, which include social and communication technologies. Over time, these technologies spread more and more in social networks, an environment that relegates classic institutions of political socialization – family, friends – to the background. - the main features of social and communicative technologies of modern society are: systematicity, a clearly defined socially significant goal and audience, feedback, creativity, new forms and platforms for dissemination. One of these forms is political advertising and PR-technologies, which were distributed in social networks, and we could observe particular effectiveness during the elections of 2019-2020, and special attention from young people arose after the start of the war in 2022. - there were changes in the political consciousness of young people in the period 2019-2022 as a result of transformational changes in the functioning of the state and with the beginning of the war, which indicate a greater level of awareness of young people on political topics and awareness of the role of politics in their lives. In the course of writing the empirical research program, hypotheses were organized: To the goal 1 Hypothesis-base: among the features of the political consciousness of young people, there are new dominant factors of influence that shape their understanding of the concept of political consciousness and determine the place of political consciousness in life; Hypothesis-consequence: among young people, the concept of political consciousness is widespread only as an idea and understanding of politics, and the place of political consciousness in their lives is insignificant. To goal 2 Hypothesis-base: social and communicative technologies have taken the place of dominant factors in the formation of political choices of young people; Hypothesis-consequence: the political choice of young people is mostly formed under the influence of political publications in social networks; To goal 3 Hypothesis-basis: in the political consciousness of young people, changes occurred in the period 2019-2022 as a result of transformational changes in the functioning of the state and with the beginning of the war Hypothesis-consequence: the political consciousness of young people has largely undergone transformations after the beginning of the war. As a result of the study, the following conclusions were drawn up: The hypothesis about the widespread concept of political consciousness of young people only as an idea and understanding of politics can be refuted. Since 7 out of 10 respondents consider political consciousness not only as an understanding of politics, but also as a manifestation of values and views, a constant interest in political life and an awareness of the place of politics in their lives. We can also refute the hypothesis regarding the insignificant place of political consciousness in the life of young people. Since eight informants out of ten who were involved in the research claimed that political consciousness is responsible and important for everyone, it should be developed and changed for the benefit of the future. We can confirm the hypothesis about political publications in social networks as a dominant factor in the formation of the political consciousness of young people, because all 10 informants expressed their opinion that both family and friends play a role in forming their views on the political situation, but special attention is paid to each of informants were provided by the roles of social networks. Nine informants attached importance to social networks, claimed that they most often learn political news on websites, especially on such popular social networks as Instagram and Facebook. Also, young people often mentioned various types of telegrams from the Telegram news service. The hypothesis of significant changes in political consciousness in the period 2019-2022 as a result of transformational changes in the functioning of the state and with the beginning of the war can be confirmed, because nine respondents claim that they became more actively interested in politics and felt its role in their lives precisely with the beginning of the war . Key words: youth, politics, political consciousness, social and communication technologies