Setting the third level agenda: A study of media consumption by Russian "digital youth"

This article describes the results of verification of "meaningful frames" formulated on the basis of studying the content of social networks popular among "digital youth" during focus group interviews in Moscow, Barnaul, Nizhny Novgorod, and Rostov-on-Don. "Meaningful frames" were discussed in 8 focus group interviews, which involved young people aged 17 to 21 years. The number of participants in each varied from 8 to 12 respondents, with a total of 77 respondents taking part in the study. The interviews were conducted from October 25 to November 10, 2023. "Meaningful frames" were verified in focus groups in order to detect a possible framing effect, that is, the justified ability of media content to influence the audience's conclusions and behavior. As a result, not each specific "meaningful frame" receives unambiguous confirmation of its impact (sometimes one contradicts another), but the network unity of several "meaningful frames", although differing in their particular – narrative – manifestation, but united by a common – metanarrative – judgment. If the narratives contained in the media are perceived by the audience in a heterogeneous manner, then the metanarratives to which they refer at a higher level of generalization create ideas about the picture of the world in the media, which are very cohesively shared by the audience representatives. Thus, a conclusion is made about the unconfirmed effect of framing as the second level of agenda setting, but the effect of setting the agenda of the third level is confirmed. The interconnection of "meaningful frames" at the metanarrative level was discovered: patriotism, self-esteem, civic duty and freedom were at the center of the network agenda. Patriotism was reflected in a variety of "semantic frames" expressed both in the thesis about improving life in Russia and in the thesis about love for national culture and pride in it. Social responsibility was associated with the topic of education, and the right to choose was perceived by young people, among other things, as the right to improve the quality of their own lives and improve their country. The focus groups showed that their participants have a generally similar and balanced picture of the world (both ontologically and constructed by the media). Similarities in basic values and ideas about what should and should not be, about the right and wrong were revealed. The study confirmed the network model of audience's perception of information, when the cognitive understanding of external social reality is presented in the minds of the media audience as something resembling a network, where numerous nodes are connected to each other in the form of associations, memory, feelings, and other cognitive processes.