ABSTRACT: This article reports the survey results of the young Russians, held in May 2021, in order to identify their opinions regarding the media image of Russia. The purpose of this article is to describe the model of the Russian media image, identifying problem areas in the formation of national media images and the levels and modalities of their representation among the Russian youth. We used the structural approach to the questionnaire. The findings were analyzed using the phenomenological and hermeneutical, as well as social and constructivistic approaches. The method of conceptual modeling revealed the levels of the perception of the media image of Russia
by young people. The survey revealed the dominant informational and cognitive motivation of young people in their choice of media, their tendency to mostly reliable information. Nevertheless, more than half of respondents do not trust the media, which, in their view, deliberately embellish or distort the reality.