"Digital childhood": the protest potential of schoolchildren (results of a mass survey in the Stavropol region, 2020)

The article deals with the actual problem of mobilising school protests in Russia and around the world. The researchers aim to analyse the protest potential of high school students on the example of one of the regions of Russia - the Stavropol region. The choice of this research case is explained by a number of its characteristics. The Stavropol region is one of the regions targeted by the pressure of external information. It is a subject of the Federation that has signs of a risky nature: a multinational composition, a mono-economy, a significant social distance between strata.

The authors formulate a hypothesis according to which the scale and nature of the influence of digital communications on the choice of protest behaviour strategy to a greater extent depends on the user's place in the informational social media flow and on his value preferences and orientations.

In the process of verifying this scientific assumption, a mass survey by online questionnaire method was conducted among schoolchildren in the Stavropol region aged 15-18 years (April - May 2020, N = 1250 respondents, the sample is representative by gender and territorial affiliation). The key database processing method is K-means clustering (using SPSS Statistics 26.0) on the following grounds: the characteristics of the political behaviour of young people in online and offline spaces and the range of typical and acceptable reactions of young people to messages calling for participation in protests.

The identified four types of carriers of different levels of protest potential among Stavropol high school students: "spectators", "involved", "activists", "leaders", were analysed from the standpoint of their value orientations, their place in the space of social media communication, and the specifics of protest activity.

The main results of the study are empirical evidence of a special value profile of Stavropol high school students who have the highest protest potential: destructive social attitudes and an unformed national-state identity, that are combined with the maximum pragmatism of a life strategy. The authors tend to diagnose the risk level of the presented situation from the standpoint of the great potential of the non-conventional orientation of the protest behaviour of these schoolchildren in the event that their online activity is transferred offline. However, the results of the study showed a discrepancy between the value choices of young "leaders" and "activists" of the protest in comparison with the value preferences of the representatives of the "involved" and "spectators" clusters. This predetermines the low probability of scaling protest headliners among schoolchildren in the Stavropol region.

protest potential, high school students, social media, online formats of protest activity, types of protest potential, hierarchical positions of protesters in social media, protesters' value orientations, mass online survey, cluster analysis

1. Akhremenko A. S., Stukal D. K., Petrov A. P. Web or text? Drivers of Protest Spread on Social Media: Theory and Data Analysis. Polis. Politicheskie issledovaniya. 2020: 2: 73–91 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2020.02.06
2. Barash R. E., Petukhov V. V., Petukhov R. V. Information and communication factors in the formation of new practices of civic activism. Sociologicheskaya nauka i social`naya praktika, 2015: 4 (12): 99–125 (in Russ.).
3. Brodovskaya E. V., Dombrovskaya A. Yu., Karzubov D. N. Development of methodology and techniques for intelligent search for digital markers of political processes in social media. Monitoring obshhestvennogo mneniya: ekonomicheskie i social`nye peremeny, 2017: 5: 79–104 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.14515/monitoring.2017.5.06
4. Brodovskaya E. V., Huang T. Digital generation: civil mobilization and political protest of Russian youth. Monitoring obshhestvennogo mneniya: ekonomicheskie i social`nye peremeny, 2019: 5: 3–18 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.14515/monitoring.2019.5.01
5. Bronnikov I. A. Crisis of representative democracy and new practices of civic activism. PolitBook, 2018: 1: 64–78 (in Russ.).
6. Vygotsky L. S. Sobranie sochinenij: V 6 t. [Collected works: In 6 volumes]. Vol. 1–6. Moscow, 1982–1984. Accessed 06.01.2020. URL: http://ipbi.rf/images/Bibl/SSV1.pdf (in Russ.).
7. Loginova L. V., Shcheblanova V. V. Destructive civic activity of young people: theoretical and methodological conceptualization. Logos et Praxis, 2019: 18: 2: 98–108 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.15688/lp.jvolsu.2019.2.9
8. Lotman Yu. M. Semiotika kul`tury i ponyatie teksta [Semiotics of culture and the concept of text]. In Selected articles. Vol. 1. Tallinn, 1992: 479 (in Russ.).
9. Pyrma R. V. Protest moods of Russian youth in the digital network. Gumanitarnye nauki. Vestnik Finansovogo universiteta, 2019: 9 (6): 100–110 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.26794/2226-7867-2019-9-6-100-110
10. Ruban L. S. Today’s deviant behavior and the youth’s attitudes to its manifestations. Vestnik RUDN. Seriya: Sociologiya, 2018: 18: 2: 318–333 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.22363/2313-2272-2018-18-2-318-333
11. Savenkov R. V., Shcheglova D. V. Theories of collective behavior and resource mobilization: elaboration on the concepts for the analysis of political protest. Vestnik RUDN. Seriya: Politologiya, 2018: 20: 4: 555–563 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.22363/2313-1438-2018-20-4-555-563
12. Sedova N. N. Self-Sufficiency and Activism in the Worldview of Russians. Sociologicheskaya nauka i social`naya praktika, 2019: 4: 9–25. (in Russ.). DOI: 10.19181/snsp.2019.7.4.6796
13. Thaler R, Sunstein K. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Transl. from Eng. by E. Petrova. Moscow, Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2017: 240 (in Russ.).
14. Thaler R. From Homo economicus to Homo sapiens. Logos. 2014: 1 (97): 141–154 (in Russ.).
15. Ushkin S. G. Methodological approaches towards studying network protest activity: from the “smart crowd” towards “slactivism”. Monitoring obshhestvennogo mneniya: ekonomicheskie i socialnye peremeny, 2015: 3: 3–12 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.14515/monitoring.2015.3.01
16. Tsukanov Ya. A. Theoretical and methodological foundations of social forecasting of protest activity. Srednerusskij vestnik obshhestvennyh nauk, 2017: 12: 5: 248–254 (in Russ.). DOI: 10.22394/2071-2367-2017-12-5-248-254
17. British schoolchildren to join Europe-wide protest “strikes” over climate change. The World Economic Forum. 01 Feb. 2019. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/belgian-schoolchildren-on-strike-protest-climate-change/
18. Climate strike: Schoolchildren protest over climate change. ВВС. 15 February 2019. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47250424
19. “It Will Be Too Late for My Generation”. Meet the Young People Organizing a Massive Climate Change Protest. TIME. 14 March, 2019. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: https://time.com/5550823/climate-change-protest-schoolchildren/
20. Jasper J. M., Duyvendak J. W., eds. Players and Arenas: The Interactive Dynamics of Protest. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2015: 322.
21. Latour B. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2005: 301. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: https://id.hse.ru/data/2014/02/24/1331207213/Латур%20текст%20сайт.pdf
22. Lazarsfeld P., Berelson B., Gaudet H. The People’s Choice. How the Voter Makes up his Mind in a Presidential Campaign. New York, Columbia University Press, 1944: 384.
23. Less activism, more learning - Australia's PM rebukes schoolchildren protesting climate change. CNN. November 26, 2018. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/26/australia/australia-pm-climate-protest-scli-intl/index.html
24. Mossberger K., Tolbert C. J., McNeal R. S. Digital Citizenship: The Internet, Society and Participation. Massachusetts, The MIT Press, 2007: 240.
25. Mossberger K., Wu Y., Crawford J. Connecting citizens and local governments? Social media and interactivity in major U.S. Cities Government Information Quarterly. 2013: 30(4): 351–358.
26. Serbian schoolchildren protest over maths test leak. REUTERS. June 19, 2019. Accessed 01.06.2020. URL: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-serbia-protests-students/serbian-schoolchildren-protest-over-maths-test-leak-idUSKCN1TK21A
27. Zald M.N., McCarthy J. D. Social Movements in an Organizational Society: Collected Essays. New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1987: 435.