In contrast to the intense and lively campaign of 2011, the apathetic campaign of 2016 left no significant information trace. Although legislative changes were supposed to stimulate the media activities of non-parliamentary and small parties, this did not happen –“United Russia” totally dominated over other parties in both federal and regional media. The largest contributors to this outcome were the summer holidays and political passivity of many election “stakeholders.”  The chief new trends of the 2016 election year were thus: regionalization, the de-facto refusal of the ruling party to campaign on the federal level, and the “crowding out” of the non-parliamentary opposition to blogs and social networks.

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