Digital media are changing the ways in which our society functions at all levels and in all spheres. Politics is not an exception. This thesis contributes to the study of the political economy of communication in authoritarian regimes, taking Russia as an example, and aims at identifying how Russian youth use digital media in their political activities. For this purpose, the Smart Voting campaign initiated by the opposition leader Alexei Navalny is analyzed as digital media affecting people’s voting behavior. In this research, I have conducted a range of qualitative interviews with young people who are participating in this year’s campaign on the topics of their media usage and their attitude towards Navalny, Smart Voting, and other aspects of Russian politics. The overall results correlate with global trends in media usage but with several exceptions.