Strengthening Russia’s „Orchestrated Democracy“ through Propaganda and Misinformation. Case Study: the 2018 Presidential Elections

Both disinformation and propaganda are basic means of manipulation in the Russian society, thus contributing to the electoral decision-making process, as well as to the consolidation of the „orchestrated democracy“.In the case of such regimes, both information dissemination technologies and social networks do not embody the citizens’ right to be informed correctly; they rather turn into the state’s right to lie. This paper analyzes the electoral process and the voter manipulation techniques used in the pre-electoral stage of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation that took place on March 18th, 2018, together with the main ways to campaign through which Vladimir Putin managed to win a landslide victory.