Online campaigning in Russia: evidence from the 2011 State Duma election

Despite the continuing growth of internet use in Russia, there remains little systematic analysis of online election campaigning. This article presents an in-depth, multi-method analysis of party and candidate online activity during the 2011 State Duma election campaign—arguably Russia's first ‘internet election’—to ascertain the extent to which new social media is changing politics in Russia. The main findings indicate that the internet did indeed help to level the competitive playing field during the election campaign period, but despite the growing number of internet users, the overall level of online engagement remained weak.