Investigating the main sources of political acquisition in the student environment of the Republic of Tatarstan

Abstract

This article is an analysis of data obtained during a sociological survey conducted by the authors in the spring of 2017 among the students of the Kazan Federal University. The purpose of the study was to expose the students’ preferences concerning the sources of obtaining political information. The topicality of the study is determined by a number of circumstances, such as: the need to engage young people in social and political relations, which is one of the most important aspects of the process of general socialization of young people in a democratic society; the problem of increasing the effectiveness of the process of political communication, which is of paramount importance in the run-up to the presidential elections of 2018 in Russia. In the created situation, it is the use of the scientific, in this case sociological, toolkit that is a necessary prerequisite for the formation of effective channels of political communication with student youth and, in general, increasing the political activity of this part of society. The attention of researchers was focused on the main trends in changing the channels for obtaining political information among the students, namely, the transformation of the Internet into the main channel of political communication and the reasons that led to this process. The results of the research show that now the Internet has become the main source of information in the student environment of the Republic of Tatarstan, but the interest in foreign and domestic political information is more situational in the student environment and is associated with specific political events.