international Internet-conference “Democracy in the Informational Society: Prospects for Russia in the Light of International Experience” of Konrad Adenauer Foundation

Influence of access to information on the prevailing models of political participation
in the regions of Russia 

The issue of the influence of the effect of the regions digital disparity on electoral participation is considered in connection with the problems of the possible development of information society in Russia.

There exists unevenness of distribution in saturation of the information field in the regions of Russia, which is revealed in digital disparity of the regions comparable by the scope with the distance between the developed countries – the leaders of informatization – and the backward states of Africa.

The effect of influence of the free regional press is considered as the prototype of assessment and record of mass informatization impact on the models of political participation (otherwise promotion of any opponents of a candidate lobbied by the federal mass media proceeds more intensively).

The quantitative analysis of the mass media development in the regions shows strict fix of the level of mass media development to the region economical development and reverse connection with the index of authoritarianism reflecting democratic level of the method of building political authority in a region. There is being grounded the hypothesis of two basic types of political participation – mobilizing and alternative.

Comparison of real and virtual voting reveals that RuNet users in the majority follow more liberal ideology and in their preferences are closer to the inhabitants of the regions with highly developed mass media. It enables to predict the effect of information impact on democratization of political participation at the general skeptical assessment of attainability of parity of the information space of the regions in the nearest years.

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© JB Last modification  8.07.2004