COMMUNICATIVE AND POLITICAL POTENTIAL OF RUSSIAN INSTITUTIONS OF E-DEMOCRACY


Author: FELDMAN P.Y.


Communicology. 2016. v.4, n.2
FELDMAN Pavel Yakovlevich, Candidate of political sciences, Associate Professor of the Academy of Labor and Social Relations.

Abstract: The article provides consideration of Russian Internet platforms for vertical and horizontal political communication in the process of coordination of governmental and society interests. The author gives a comparative analysis of three types of institutions of e-democracy: portals for public examination of laws and regulations; resources for drawing up electronic petitions and collecting signatures in support of them; e-platforms, forming a virtual infrastructure of communication of leaders, activists and ordinary members and supporters of certain political parties. The author estimates communicative functionality and efficiency of such virtual resources as www.regulation.gov.ru, portal “Russianpublic initiative”, section “zero reading” on the website of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, the forum “We together” of supporters and members of
the political party “United Russia”. The results of the research indicate that the official portals for law examination and electronic petition creation often work as fake e-democracy institutions. More positive characteristics are deserved by the inner-party project “We together” which provides its users with an opportunity to contact the government in the question-answer format. The author of the article comes to a conclusion that the main problem of Russian mechanisms of virtual political communication is ignoring of citizens initiatives and proposals in political decision-making process.

Keywords: electronic democracy, political communication, coordination of interests, “zero readings”, public examination.


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