THE EFFECT OF THE STATE INSTITUTION AND THE "PARTY OF POWER" ON CONSTRUCTING THE IMAGE OF RUSSIAN WOMEN-PARLIAMENTARIANS

Abstract

The paper presents the results of the research in the area of political construction of the image of Russian women politicians. The cultural-historical approach and the new institutionalism, as the main of the three methodological approaches of the study, made it possible to trace that from the foundation of the Soviet state to the present times, the main political institutions that influence the content of the image structures of Russian women parliamentarians are the state itself and the “party in power” which determine the main direction of developing the entire political process in Russia. Constructivism as the main of the three methodological approaches made it possible to apply modeling as a method of studying the main object and present a number of models of the political image of Russian women parliamentarians. The study widely used the method of content analysis of the media and mass communication tools. As an experiment, public opinion polls were conducted to identify expectations of what a Russian woman parliamentarian should be. Complex scientific methods, such as analysis, synthesis, and generalization are used. For the first time, the effect of the state and the “party of power” on constructing the image of women parliamentarians of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia was investigated. As a result of studying the public opinion, analyzing the voters’ expectations, the author for the first time develops a model of a woman’s political image: 1) “Soviet externally oriented triumphant”; 2) «the late Soviet and post-Soviet person-oriented»; 3) «post-Soviet asymmetrical»; 4) «post-Soviet gender-neutral.» The results of the study allow to understand the features of the image of Russian women parliamentarians, the image design processes through the use of modeling as a basis for the image concept, as well as they can be used by political consultants, public relations specialists when developing an image campaign of an electoral company deputies of the Russian parliament. The models can be used in designing and implementing gender programs; can be used by creators of popular science and documentary films and television programs on gender issues that contribute to changing the stereotypes regarding the attractiveness of women’s leadership in political processes.