Abstract
Introduction Digital media are central to youth political socialization, but frequent use of digital information sources does not necessarily translate into political participation. This study examines how digital media use for information, political interest and discussion, institutional trust, and participation are associated among young people in Kazakhstan. Methods The analysis uses World Values Survey Wave 7 Kazakhstan Version 5.0 microdata. The population aged 18–29 comprises 308 respondents. Composite indices were constructed from the WVS items for digital information use, political interest and discussion, institutional trust, overall political participation, and protest-oriented participation. Negative WVS response codes were treated as missing. OLS models use listwise-complete cases, standardized coefficients, HC3 robust standard errors, multicollinearity diagnostics, and a 5,000-sample bootstrap test of the hypothesized indirect association. Results Digital media use for information was positively associated with political interest and discussion ( β = 0.238, p < 0.001), overall political participation ( β = 0.351, p < 0.001), and protest-oriented participation ( β = 0.279, p < 0.001). Political interest and discussion was not independently associated with overall participation ( β = 0.034, p = 0.655), and the bootstrapped indirect association was not significant ( β = 0.001, 95% Boot CI [−0.037, 0.037]). Institutional trust was negatively associated with overall participation ( β = −0.177, p = 0.024) but not with protest-oriented participation. Discussion The findings support an associational rather than causal interpretation. Digital information use is related to political attentiveness and participation, but the proposed indirect pathway through general political interest and discussion is not supported in this cross-sectional sample.