How Media Constructs Political Corruption: Case of the Internet Media Reaction to the Political Corruption Scandal during Election Campaign to the Parliament of Lithuania in 2016

Corruption is not just a problem of developing countries, corruption scandals arise and develop also in Western democracies, what differ are the perception and assessment of corruption. As scientists state, corruption is a phenomenon that is determined by the country's democratic (state) traditions and culture, dominant values and behaviour standards, etc. Most of the time corruption is analysed in the context of political, business, health care and media systems that are interrelated. By far, talking about the understanding and reaction to corruption in politics, are based on public perception of corruption. Corruption in political arena is related not only to actions of politicians, or public officers, but depends on the understanding and its tolerance in society. The cases of political corruption are rare, but they still happen, and it does not matter whether it is a developing county, a newly established democracy, or a so called western democracy. The phenomenon of political corruption is based on political culture, or even more broadly speaking, on national culture, traditions. And because of that cases of political corruption and their evaluation and reaction to them of the participants of political system (political actors, media and citizens) in general demonstrates the level of tolerance of such actions. Results of political election campaign can be considered as the mirror of perception of political corruption in political system, because they demonstrate the activities of all participants of political system and their attitude toward the case. This article aims to analyze the concept of political corruption in order to identify its main determinants and to investigate the potential influence of the case of corruption of political actor on the outcome of the political elections. In this paper the quantitative media content analysis is presented to show the coverage of the political party in relation to political election campaign during the political election period and political corruption event. It is done in search for the factors that determine the presentation and possible impact of political corruption event on the results of political elections. In the research the media content of the political actor, that was accused of corruptive activities (bribery) was analysed. The article also discusses whether the political corruption of political party leader and its presentation in the media may affect the political election results