"How – and with what consequences – has the emergence of new modes of internet-mediated (i.e. networked, interactive) communication changed our societies in recent years? This is a question that is central to a growing body of communications literature that is often referred to as “mediatization” or “mediation” research. However, while being based on a wide array of disparate theoretical assumptions and methodical approaches, virtually all the current studies on “mediatization” have one feature in common: Their empirical focus lies on western, developed, democratic societies. In the face of this “western bias” of extant research on mediatization, the primary goal of this project is: to take under close scrutiny the mediatization of the political sphere in contemporary semi-authoritarian Russia. To accomplish this goal, this project will seek, for instance, to fathom how common Russians have integrated blogs into their daily news diets and how oppositional politicians make use of blogs as new tools of political communication in the elections in 2011/12. Investigating the Russian case appears intriguing and relevant not only because the country remains a major nuclear and energy power, but also because the Russian internet – in sharp contrast to its Chinese counterpart – is currently not at all being technically filtered. Moreover, at the level of interpretation, a comparative perspective with other (semi-)authoritarian regimes (primarily in Asia and the Arab world) is aspired. Thus, the project will also add valuable and nuanced contributions to the currently ongoing, intense academic debate on the broader question whether the internet in the context of non-democratic regimes is to be seen rather as a “technology of liberation” or as a ""technology of control""."