2. Purpose of the study

Political and Internet communication becoming more and more demanded topic for research in recent years. Such interest for researched topic from both the practical and theoretical points of view due to several factors. First of all, its related to changes in communicational forms in socio political relations. In modern life, the Internet becoming the most common platform for information circulation. Today, the number of internet users is growing rapidly, and most of them are voters (Webster, 2002).

Second factor is a crisis of traditional political communication, which is manifested, among other features, in a low level of political activity among citizens. At a time when voters removed more and more from the political superstructure of society, consisting of government agencies, political groups and other political structures, the government has to use unconventional methods of communication to keep in touch with the electorate. And the Internet became a solution for this problem. (Davis, 1999; Deibert, 1997). The third factor, provided an attractive for chosen topic top is that Internet is increasingly being recognized as a means of political communication, which requires its own, like any other phenomenon of political life, theoretical analysis and evaluation (Graber, 2001; Davis, 1999; Mervin, 2002).

All of these processes are directly related to Russia. Moreover, as an example of a young democracy, which has historical tradition of totalitarism, political communication in Russia has a special scientific interest.

In this case, the following hypothesis forms the basis of this work: the Internet is one of the most promising directions of development political communication in modern society, both as a means of ensuring the political process, and as a tool for creation the "electronic government" – “the employment of the Internet and the World Wide Web for delivering government information and services to the citizens” (United Nations, 2006; p. 45). In the present study, the term ""electronic government" preferred before the term “electronic democracy" – “the use of the Internet which empowers citizens to hold politicians accountable for their actions and facilitates a way of communication between political representatives and citizens, thus making the representatives more responsive” (Alexander Trechsel, 2004; p. 31) - because of the inherent contradictions of the last one.

To support this hypothesis, several aspects of the problem will be highlighted:

1. One of the most demanded theoretical approaches, examining the internet as a tool of political communication is “two – steps flow” theory.

2. In modern Russia, the Internet is used as subsidiary means for political communication because of serious limitations. On the one hand, the limitations related to the fundamental characteristics of the Russian Internet audience. On the other hand, one of major barriers to the widespread of the Internet technologies in Russia is a stereotype that Internet as an easily accessible means of placing unverified information or compromising data. In this case, this study investigates the willingness of citizens to change the discourse of political communication in the Internet.

3. "Electronic Government" in modern Russia presented only in the form of disparate elements. On the one hand, this is due to the lack of unified program for the “information society” in Russia. On the other hand, due to a great resistance of the bureaucracy, not interested in conducting of large government reform. In these circumstances, the most demanded function is the positioning of public administration in the media.

On the basis of listed above hypotheses, the objective of this study is:

The investigation of modern concepts, forms and methods of political communication in the Internet, related to the problems and prospects of creating the "electronic government" in modern Russia. In order to achieve more consistent results in determination the place of the Internet in process of political communication in modern Russia, this study implements the scheme of “electronic government development”, created by Darrell M. West (West, 2005). According to this scheme, the implementation of any technological innovation is going through three stages: a stage of gradual development, a permanent stage of practical use and, finally, the stage of transformation changes bearing irreversible. In its turn the introduction of “electronic government” is going through four stages: the billboard stage, the partial service-delivery stage, the portal stage with fully executable and integrated service delivery, and interactive democracy with public outreach and accountability-enhancing features. Even though this categorization does not mean all government websites go through these exact steps or that they undertake them in a linear order, this sequence appears to be a prevalent course of action in many jurisdictions (West, 2005). Using this scheme, it is possible to correlate the actual level of development of political communication in the Internet with the proposed classification, which will make possible to assess the prospects of “electronic government” citizen’s perception in Russia, and identify areas for further development.