Videoblogs as an alternative of mass media for Russian youth: testing the hypothesis

The paper is devoted to the description of the results of a sociological research, which was conducted for the empirical verification of the hypothesis about the transformation of videoblogs into an alternative of mass media for representatives of Russian youth. An analysis of recent scientific literature in the area sociology of youth leads author to the conclusion that discussions about the transformation of video blogs into an actual analogue of traditional mass media for representatives of Russian youth have become quite common in current research practice. But at the same time the degree of substantiation of this idea remains not entirely clear: the inclination of young people to treat videoblogs as a substitute for traditional media is often described only speculatively and does not correlate with specific empirical data. Trying to take a step in overcoming this problem, the author uses the data of his own research, carried out in early 2020 on the basis of the Ural Federal University. The key conclusion of the author’s analysis is that it is somewhat premature to talk about videoblogs as a ready-made alternative to traditional media for young people. Although such services are popular among young people, they are perceived primarily as entertainment tools and only few see them as an important source of information.