The movement “the Voice” on Monday released a report on the coverage of the parties in the media during the election campaign in 2016. The study “Voices,” based on the results of monitoring messages from the database “Medialogia” from March 13, 2016. During this time, were analyzed over 700 million messages in mass media of different levels and type.
The report called campaign 2016 apathetic and not left an appreciable trace information”. “It was the most sluggish and inactive campaign of the decade”, the report says. Co-chair of the movement “Golos” Gregory Melkonyants said that the current campaign compared with the Duma elections of 2007 and 2011.
On the intensity of the media support the election campaign has been affected by the fact that it occurred in the midst of the summer holidays and the passivity of the political “players”, explain the authors of the study.
While both Federal and regional media maintained the total dominance of “United Russia”, as in the last campaign of 2011, the report said. The second most frequently mentioned in the media is the Communist party. For third place, with varying success throughout the campaign fought “Fair Russia” and LDPR.
The peak of media interest in United Russia fell on 27 June, when the President called for the Congress party in power in the Arena. Also about the “United Russia” there was a lot of spring materials, particularly through primaries.
After the party Congress media interest in the party almost halved. United Russia has chosen the media strategy on the principle of “to glow, but not Shine” experts “Voices”. According to their observations, mostly United Russia mentioned due to the news programs, which involve the members and candidates of the party in power, not always in connection with the election.
In comparison with 2011 media coverage of activities of “United Russia” is basically neutral, the report said. In previous campaigns against the party in power, the journalists allowed themselves more negative — more than 20% of all references to the party in power then had been negative and only 14% positive. This time the bulk of the negative references is not associated with the agitation against United Russia in the media, as it was five years ago in the campaign “Against the party of crooks and thieves”.
Due to changes in legislation (the return of single-mandate) all the parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties were forced to bet on the regions, the report said. “United Russia” became the most represented in the regional media party. Communists take second place, followed by just Russia and the LDPR. In the Federal media, United Russia appear 137,6 thousand times, in a regional — 47,5 thousand times. Going after the Communists appeared in the Federal media 53 thousand times during the campaign, regional — 27.4 thousand times.
The reason for the sluggishness of this campaign is the lack of solid resources from the participants in the elections, said political analyst Konstantin Kalachev. According to him, power does not preclude the performance of the representatives of the opposition on the Federal channels, the question of money and the unwillingness of sponsors to invest in the opposition party. “Spot distribution, obviously, left in the gallery, and those wishing to invest in this, no” — sums up the expert.
