Virtual Expectations: Condition and Prospects of Political Runet

Virtual Expectations: Condition and Prospects of Political Runet




DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2002.01.05
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For citation:

Ovchinnikov B.V. Virtual Expectations: Condition and Prospects of Political Runet . – Polis. Political Studies. 2002. No. 1. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2002.01.05



Abstract

Runet’s political segment is investigated and an attempt is made to evaluate grounds for the widely spread views of the Internet as a generator of inevitable changes in the social and political spheres. Relying on his analysis of a wide range of sources, the author sets forth the conclusion that theoretically, the Internet (as a social milieu) undoubtedly has the potentiality to play an appreciable role in political life. The new technologies bring unparalleled possibilities of prompt spread of information, of interactivity and participation of the masses in the net life (not only as readers, but also as authors). Moreover, the high quality of the Internet audience makes the audience gratifying milieu for new ideas to be received and spread. At the same time, as the investigation has demonstrated, there are no grounds at the moment either to assert any political influence of Russian Web users as a definite social group, or even just to affirm the existence of at least any significant interest for politics on their part at all. Most of them confine themselves to visiting news resources with relative regularity, and as for the consumption of considerable amounts of on-line political information, for that matter, it is worth evaluating just as proof of one of the Web’s communicative potentialities, but not as a form of political participation.

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See also:


Lukin A.V.,
The Transition Period in Russia: Democratization and Liberal Reforms. – Polis. Political Studies. 1999. No2

Oleskin A.V.,
Network Structures of Society from the Viewpoint of Biopolitics. – Polis. Political Studies. 1998. No1

Sokolskaya I.B.,
Is the Conservative Revolution Conservative? (On a Chronological Scale of Political Theories). – Polis. Political Studies. 1999. No6

Kulpin E.S.,
How to Transform Ourselves?. – Polis. Political Studies. 1991. No4

Blyakher L.Ye.,
Want of Nationalism, or National Self-Consciousness in Russia’s Far East. – Polis. Political Studies. 2004. No3


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