Authors

Discussion

In recent years, there has been widespread research on the role and effects of new media on political participation with the development of Web 2.0 and emergence of Web 3.0. The research agenda in the field is to investigate how and why citizens use new media in their political participation. In order to better examine why some young people use new media in their political participation and others do not, I analysed this question by employing uses and gratifications theory through the lens of the advantages and disadvantages of new media in promoting political participation in Russia and Kazakhstan. The data were collected from 2,400 respondents using Qualtrics surveys, semi-structured (n=90) and focus group (n=40) interviews in 18 cities, 18 towns, and 18 villages, suggesting a novel methodological perspective to study Russia and Kazakhstan. The findings demonstrate that among all advantages of using new media – cost-effectiveness, easiness to use, personalisation, alternativeness and opportunities – positively affect political participation, while the disadvantages of new media such as surveillance, fear of censorship, the lack of organisers, and ‘fakeness’ positively influence the political disengagement of young people. The present paper contends that the lens of advantages and disadvantages has particular significance in studying a ‘why’ question in the field of new media research, applying uses and gratifications theory.