Political Communication on Lithuanian Information Websites

During this research, it was found that the increasing popularity of Lithuanian information websites made this an interesting research subject as a means of analysing political communication. The object of this research was political communication on Lithuanian information websites. The main objective of this paper was to identify the use of different specific Lithuanian information websites as a means of political communication. The following tasks have been brought up to achieve the objective of this paper: to define the concept and the process of political communication, to characterize each evolution stage of political communication, to analyze distinction of the concept, to examine different theories of the influence of the internet on political communication, to analyze the forms of political communication on the internet, to identify advantages and disadvantages of the political communication on the internet; to analyze political communication on delfi, omni and bernardinai information websites. The subject is topical because political communication is researched in new media - Lithuanian information websites, where, voters’ participation in political communication is very specific and unique and differs a lot from the participation in the traditional political communication process. Particularity of political communication on the information websites shows the level of modernity in relations to politicians and society. Another important thing is that because of the growth of the internet usage the role of political communication on the information websites increases. Research methods: analysis of the scientific literature, comparative analysis, quantitative analysis of political articles according to their form and character. The main conclusion was that neither politicians nor political parties exploit Lithuanian information websites as means of political communication. Political communication analysis on Lithuanian information websites has shown that the most common and popular, by the number of comments, form of political communication during the research period was negative political articles. Knowing the fact that information websites are used as news media by a third of Lithuania’s citizens and that the usage of the internet in Lithuania is exponentially increasing, it might be stated, that well planned political communication on Lithuanian information websites would help politicians to improve their image and popularize their ideas by influencing potential voters