2. Political campaigns on the Internet.

Speaking closely about such subjects of the political process, as political parties, socio-political organizations and political leaders, they were active supporters of the Internet using. Quite natural that primarily in the network political election campaigns proved to be popular. As an illustrative example let’s look on facts, relating to the use of the Internet technologies in the U.S. presidential election in 1996. Bruce I. Newman (1999) gives numbers according to which the presidential website was visited by one million people only during the first 10 days of the campaign (Newman, 1999; p. 60). The U.S. president at the time was Bill Clinton. Election campaign headquarters of his opponent, Senator Dole, said that his site was visited by 9 million people from September, 1995 to August, 1996. Moreover, nearly 6000 volunteers were recruited through this site to take an active part in the election campaign (Newman, 1999; p. 60).

The most popular forms of political propaganda on the Internet are:

• E-mail;

• Website;

• Interaction with the media;

• Research;

• Political advertising on the Web (Vershinin, 2001; p. 77);

• Twitter (Conover et al., 2011).

E-mail is one of the most common tools of political communication on the Internet. Even at the early days of network technologies in 1972, when the first network ARPA. net was combined with 23 computers, the first program to exchange e-mail was written and tested (Беркгаут В.В., Чадрин И.С.,2000). Since then email strongly keeps leadership in comparison with other online services. A May, 2011 “Pew Internet Survey” finds that 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Web, including 59% who do so on a typical day. This places search at the top of the list of most popular online activities among U.S. adults. But it is not alone at the top. Among online adults, 92% use email, with 61% using it on an average day (Purcell, 2011). As soon as the political organization acquires applicable electronic mailbox, simpleness of sending a letter begins to outweigh the usual fast inertia of citizens. In the United States federal government began to acquire an e-mail since 1995, and in 1998 to work with it has become a common practice (Vershinin, 2001;). In 2011, Americans sent to the White House, Congress and the Senate more than 80 million e-mails (Purcell, 2011). E-mail is also widely used as a tool of inner communication in parties: “If the party had long kept her at the place of any circulars, now, in real time, all regional party organizations that have access to the Internet can immediately see what is happening in the party, what decisions are made...” (Vershinin, 2001; p. 78). Thus, e-mail can be used for the following purposes:

• Provide answers to citizens' requests;

• Distribute information within your organization;

• Send newsletters to subscribers;

• Participate in discussion groups;

• Contact with journalists (Haig, 2001; p.105).

Obvious advantages of e-mail led to the fact that in recent years the Internet has received a very large spread of such a thing as "spam" or distribution of promotional e-mails without the consent of the recipient. Every Internet user probably faced with the fact that on his e-mail address came the most unexpected messages, in most cases not in any way relevant to his interests and expectations. Sometimes the amount of "spam" is so huge that one has to close this email address. Respected experts in the field of the Internet advertising indicate that the most important difference between e-mail-marketing and the actual spam that "real e-mail-marketing requires that you have received explicit permission from your potential customers to our newsletter messages" (Kegler et al., 2003).

Nevertheless, particularly websites are the most popular type of political communication in web because of several reasons:

1. Web site can accommodate any number of materials. There are no time or space limitations;

2. You can talk directly to the audience, bypassing the media;

3. Possible to achieve significant savings in the delivery of information to all parts of the world;

4. Information is easily updated. There is no need to print brochures and other materials;

5. The media and other users have access to your materials 24 hours a day, being in any country of the world (Wilcox, 2001; p. 374).

It is possible to identify three levels of Web sites. At the basic level web-sites is a virtual business card, containing basic information about the activities of organizations. Amount of information on the entry-level sites limited to a few pages and updated from time to time. Web sites format of the virtual business cards are mainly created for advertising purposes and fix the presence of political organization on the Internet. Second level of development related to the fact that the web site has additional elements of the portal. At this level, the volume of information, the role of feedback and intergroup communication increases significantly. Web sites in the format of the Internet portals are the highest stage of their development, because they contain wide range generic information, and include a lot of additional services, such as socio-political news, email, search engine hosting services, weather forecasts, currency exchange rates etc. The Internet portals are aimed at communication with mass audiences, and in this regard, their creation and support require very large financial and organizational efforts from organizations (Чумиков, Бочаров, 2000).

Sites of political organizations and political leaders may become controlled source of mass media. Moreover, they may have several target audiences, both external and internal. Modern Internet technologies make part of the site accessible to all visitors, while another part of it - for the authorized users. With the registration, additional information about visitors could be obtained. The downside of registration is, first, a violation of the anonymity of users, and secondly, some loss of time during registration (Kegler et al., 2003).

Practice shows that the most widely used model is the model with following information blocks or sections of a standard website of political organization:

• History of the organization;

• Appeal to the visitors from the first person of the political organization;

• The political program and political platform of the organization;

• Announcements of organization activities;

• Frequently asked questions and their answers;

• Conference for visitors;

• Questions to the representatives (managers) of the organization;

• Chats;

• Feedback (Чумиков, Бочаров, 2000).

A curious feature of web sites is their ability to recruit supporters and raise funds. Richard Davis (1999) gives data showing that 71% of the political sites "contain recruitment offers, 48% of sites provide an opportunity to become a member of an organization in an online form” (Davis, 1999; p.138 - 139). The Internet as a tool for direct communication allows interested political actors to get “first-hand” information, avoiding the influence of the more traditional technical tools - television, newspapers and magazines. If the candidate is able to meet people online, it means that this candidate has the opportunity to present their message directly thus eliminating the influence of intermediaries that can distort the true meaning of his ideas. Particular interest to American political parties is the fact that a high percentage of the Internet users falls on the so-called "floating voters" who can sway the tipped scales on the election in favor of one party. '"Thus, today the Internet "- is not only the information superhighway, which revolve around the other media, but also a forum that allows candidates to articulate the position of his election program” (Newman, 1999; p. 60).

Very popular forms of political communication on the Internet today are the relationships with the media or “mediarelations”. A huge positive factor in this sense is a tendency of journalists to seek information for their work on the web. For example, "today 68% of British journalists use the Internet as a source for the preparation of its publications, and 25% of all news in the United Kingdom directly" pumped "from the Internet" (Беленков, 2011; С. 12-13).

Political organizations and their leaders actively use the Internet to maintain good relations with the media. At first, with the help of various online events: press conferences, round tables, interviews, etc. Secondly, they use the Internet for distribution all sorts of information about political activities of the organization and its leaders to journalists.

Online polls are also quite extensively used, as to clarify the preferences of voters and for political agitation. The most widely available were online surveys that are conducted mainly on Web sites where users are asked to answer a pressing question. If the user responds to the question of such a rapid survey, he receives statistics of all respondents as a reward. Quick polls allow you to keep the curiosity of the web sites visitors. Of course, in such polls it is not necessary to say about the reliability of the results, since it does not use a representative sample (Беленков, 2011; С. 13). However, sometimes they can also be used as an informal method of research for early warning signs of problems, potentially dangerous for the organization.

The results of rapid surveys on political Web sites are often used to manipulate public opinion. Such a possibility appears due to the phenomenon, opened by German sociologist Elizabeth Noel - Neumann (1984), who managed to prove that a large part of society prefers to join the most popular point of view in the community or not to participate in political life at all (Noel – Neumann, 1984). Thus, the publications of express polls can mobilize political supporters and demoralize the political opponents. At the same time, the use of the results of such surveys as an effective instrument of agitation requires strong support in all other media. Political advertising on the Internet represented mostly in the form of banner ads. But it, unlike traditional advertising, plays supporting role in political campaigns as primarily intended to attract new visitors to the advertised political resource (Беленков, 2011; С. 15). Nevertheless, even in Russia during 1994-2001 years, there was a minimum eight political banner campaigns. At the same time, two campaigns have been caused by Chechen wars 1994 - 1996 and 2000-2001, four campaigns - by different forms of direct and indirect control over the Internet (the introduction of time-based pay phone and licensing of audio sites); two – by conflict around NTV (Белонучкин, Михайловская, 2002).

In the last few years, political actors from different countries have been increasingly using Twitter as a tool for direct communication with the voters. Sampling data from the Twitter “Gardenhouse” API, identified 250,000 politically relevant messages (tweets) produced by more than 45,000 users (Conover at al., 2011). What arguments in favor of twitter using for political purposes may be more important than the use of the Internet technologies personally by the president of USA – Barack Obama. President Obama quite successfully maneuvered the social networking stratosphere with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and with its help, cinched the presidency. He was able to gather large, massive followings, most of which is still growing even until today. He has used these platforms to further his agenda and to share his political message. Since what he has done with these platforms is such a success, many other politicians are taking note of it and started using it for their own purposes (Conover at al., 2011).

As we can see, political organizations have a great opportunity for using the Internet as a tool for political communication.