In the last weeks of the Russian presidential election, Russian blogs are offering an anecdote to the major media’s unfailing positive coverage of Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Medvedev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor,

Blogs such as Live Journal, Russia’s most popular social network and blogging site, is serving up humorous, witty, and sometimes blistering criticism of Menvedev and Putin, reports MediaChannel.

One blogger named “lekka_reka” said an old lady asked him on the street: “Have they named Medvedev president yet or will we be able to actually go out and cast our votes?”

Granted Russian political blogs don’t enjoy the same popularity as their US counterparts, due to both the Kremlin’s virtual monopoly on political power, and to technical barriers including limited access to high speed internet, or in certain parts of Russia, to personal computers themselves.  

Nonetheless the blogs do present an alternative to increasing censorship. Throughout Putin’s eight years in office, Russia’s media has fallen increasingly under the Kremlin control, mainly through the purchase of national broadcasters and major newspapers by state-controlled corporations or loyal billionaires, reports MediaChannel.

The latest change on the Russian media playing field came to pass last Friday,when shareholders of two major broadcasting companies announced the decision to merge their interests into a new conglomerate, National Media Group. It must be mentioned that Bank Rossiya chairman Yury Kovallchuk, one of the companies involved in the merger, is a well-known Putin loyalist, reports FollowtheMedia.

Sources: MediaChannel, FollowtheMedia