ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the historical implications for the conditions of the Russian mass media and its failure to meet public expectations for objectivity and accountability in the 1990s. It explains how interdependence with the state turned the Russian media into an even more powerful propaganda machine than it used to be during the Soviet time. The chapter aims to define the notion of political advertising and outline a legal framework related to election campaigning. Historically, the media have served as an intermediary between the government and the public. In the Soviet Union, the media were merely seen by the government as a means for political propaganda that served the needs of the state ideology. During the political reforms by Mikhail Gorbachev in the late 1980s, the press became the mouthpiece for the ideas of perestroika and glasnost helping the government to uncover the crimes of the communist past and to support a new political vision.
