The Influence of Reputation of Political Leaders on the Electoral Choice of Young People in Russia (on the Example of 2017-2018 Presidential Campaign of Ksenia Sobchak)

After the announcement of K. Sobchak’s determination to run for the President of Russia, the heated discussions on social networks demonstrated that a significant proportion of the electorate cannot perceive K. Sobchak as a politician that can be regarded as a serious candidate with a trustworthy political reputation despite her civic activist and political experience. This research seeks the answer to the following question: what normative expectations about a candidate for the presidency do Russian voters have today? With the content-analysis of the users’ comments about Sobchak’s campaign on the biggest social network Vkontakte and a sociological survey of the young voters, we will determine what role a political reputation of a candidate plays in the formation of the electorate’s political preferences and how the mass media can affect this process. This study will consist of 3 chapters: the first chapter is dedicated to the analysis of academic discussion on the topic. We will explore different studies about the transformation of public communication, the developing of the mediatization of politics and the alteration of the concept of political reputation due to the mediatization. In the second chapter, we will provide the results of the content-analysis of the users’ comments on the biggest social network and evaluate main discursive characteristics of their discussions about K. Sobchak as a candidate for the presidency. In the third chapter, we will describe the conduction of a sociological survey among the young voters in Russia and estimate correlations between their political preferences and perception of a political reputation of a leader.