ИСТИНА

The research is supported by the grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project No.18-78- 10090) Historically determined features of the political system of Russia, its obvious stagnation in some areas and the fact that it relies on the interests of the older generation, led the government to rely on federal television in the hope that it will be a key, if not the only, source of political information. At the same time, alternative information channels such as Internet media, social networks and messenger channels, which are most actively used by representatives of the Russian digital generation, have actively developed. Based on this, digital youth are less susceptible to government propaganda and disinformation and more different sources (both reliable and not) than representatives of previous generations. Of course, this does not mean that young people are protected from any propaganda sentiment; it is impossible since not all representatives know how to choose trusted sources of information on the Internet. The interest of young people in politics might not be called great: according to a survey conducted as part of our study, news from the country and the world is not the leading factor in the consumption of content in the media and social media. However, their political potential is due to the absence of the so-called "soviet mentality" and the formation of an alternative political agenda. The Internet broadens the horizons of social communication: the digital generation has experience of regularly interacting with other cultures and points of view. The popularity of entertaining content among young people has led to the emergence of new formats for presenting political news, which are actively used by media popular among the representatives of the generation. Memes, games, collages with humorous overtones regularly pop up in the media feeds of digital youth and become a key source of political news. The digital generation consumes political news mainly in entertaining, often humorous, formats, so the perception of the situation in the world and in Russia is very subjective. At the same time, such media consumption is characterized by a rather superficial acquaintance with a problem, topic or news. The key motivation for the consumption of entertainment content is the need of GenZs for positive emotions, so they treat political news with humor, although they can give them a critical assessment. These features of media consumption, in our opinion, should be taken into account by both media managers and political forces, since in the midterm digital generation will become the core of the electorate. Its representatives cannot be called extremely critical or objective; however, it is very important to choose the right form, format and channels for distributing the political agenda, as well as to analyze the emotions that digital youth are born with in the process of their consumption.