Previous studies on “youtubification” of political communication (May, 2010) have largely focused on democratic contexts. This study aims at exploring the role of the global video-sharing platform in non-democratic political communication, using the example of the Russian presidential election of 2018. It draws on the qualitative content analysis of 169 political videos collected from the “Popular” section of Russian YouTube during the last 2 months of the presidential campaign. The results show that oppositional discourse dominated the most popular political videos of Russian YouTube and that pro-state actors tried to co-opt the platform, publishing videos made in amateur and semi-professional styles that imitated user-generated content. Drawing on the findings, I discuss the risks and benefits of YouTube publics for the Russian authoritarian regime and the role of social media platforms in consultative authoritarianism.

先前有关政治传播“青年化”的研究（2010年5月）主要集中在民主背景下。这项研究以2018年俄罗斯总统大选为例，旨在探索全球视频共享平台在非民主政治传播中的作用。该报告基于对“热门”部分收集的169个政治视频的定性分析在总统竞选活动的最后两个月中浏览了俄罗斯YouTube。结果表明，反对派话语主导了俄罗斯YouTube最受欢迎的政治视频，而亲国家的参与者则试图选择该平台，发布以业余和半专业风格制作的视频，这些视频模仿了用户生成的内容。利用调查结果，