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The Media as a Determinant of Voting Behavior in Russian Elections from 2003–2011:Empirical Evidence Based on a Latent Class Approach

Svetlana Petri, Christian H.C.A. Henning

The media in Russia has become an attractive tool for influencing voting be- havior and the probability that the ruling party wins elections. Using a latent class approach for probabilistic voting modeling, we estimate cross-sectional data from the Russian parliamentary elections from 2003-2011 to determine empirical evidence of media capture on Russian television on the micro-level. Using TV con- sumption to generate latent heterogeneity, we investigate the impact of daily TV watching on the likelihood that voters will vote for the government party (United Russia) and their policy, non-policy and retrospective voting motives. In this sense, the non-policy motive based on party identity becomes progressively more relevant; the increase in this motive is stronger for voters watching more TV. Furthermore, the government party obtains substantial advantages in the voting probability due to TV consumption over time.