The structure of protest thinking and the idea of social protest of the youth generations "Y" and "Z" in the Far East and Moscow

Abstract

In the course of the study, a reconstruction of the respondents' ideas about five forms of collective protest behaviour was carried out: petition, rally, strike, riot and uprising using a private semantic differential (SD) to assess the protest. The obtained raw SD data were processed using the method of factor analysis, as well as the method of calculating semantic universals. The factorisation method allowed to reveal the internal implicit data structure, reducing a large volume of information to several factors. Semantic universals are group-agreed assessments of the stimulus according to the SD scales, that reflects general for all respondents ideas about the stimulus. The article presents an analysis of the categorial structures of the protest consciousness of two generations of young people, whose activity plays a special role in protest actions: representatives of the generation "Y" (or millennials) and representatives of the generation "Z" (or centennials). The method of factor analysis allowed to identify three integral axes (scales) for evaluating various forms of protest activity that are relevant for the youth groups of generation “Y” and generation “Z”. These scales mediate the formation of youth attitudes towards protest. Knowledge of the categorial structure of the protest consciousness of young people, understanding the structure and content of implicit subjective scales for evaluating various forms of protest by young people, allows us to model situations of the genesis and development of protests, to predict and evaluate social dynamics. Analysis of the ideas about protest forms showed an unconditionally positive attitude of young people to the petition and the rally. These forms of protest activity were consistently evaluated positively in all samples. The image of the strike is mostly positive, but there are peculiarities of perception in different regions. The image of violent radical forms of protest, rebellion and uprising differs markedly from the image of other forms of protest activity. First of all, these forms are most perceived as strong and active among all forms of protest. Also, young people highly evaluate their scale (“large”). These forms, moreover, are consistently rated as neither attractive nor beautiful. Also, the youth of all samples consider them extremely aggressive. But the negative connotations do not mean that violent forms of protest are unacceptable. The semantic analysis showed the ambivalence of the content of the images of rebellion and uprising. Respondents in three out of four samples do not consider them alien, senseless or hypocritical. For young people, these forms of protest have great power and scale, are extremely aggressive and not attractive, but are not alien or senseless.