The Election Silence in contemporary democracies. Questions about the sense of election silence in the Age of Internet

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies impact the democratic institutions and procedures to a great extent. One of examples of mechanisms affected by the use of ICT is so called election silence. The idea of election silence to provide voters with a peaceful, free from political agitation, conditions to consider and make final decision on elections. Despite the ban on campaigning during the election silence, many Internet users campaign for politicians or political parties, violating the existing law. The main aim of this article is to answer the questions about the ways of breaking the pre-election silence and about sense of this mechanism in the Internet age. The motivation to focus on this topic was the appearance of both: a large number of media reports on political agitation in the Internet and doubts about the continuing sense of functioning of the election silence.