The genesis of Russian electoral PR: issue of periodization

In modern Russia, the electoral PR practices make up a significant share in the national public relations structure but have not been systematically studied until now. The directions of communication activities, the object-subject area, as well as the problems of genesis, which is the basis of research in each subject area, have not been systematically studied yet. The research problem is determined by the lack of sufficient novelty and specificity of empirical material, the lack of significant theoretical and methodological foundations and concepts. For the first time in the Russian scientific discourse, the paper presents the definition of electoral PR as a communication process and determines the features of its genesis from the late 1980s to 2014 in the Russian public relations formation context. On the basis of the structural-functional and model approaches, the characteristics, structure, models, messages, functions, and parameters of electoral PR institutionalization are fixed. For the first time, the paper presents the elements, the new subjects of the electoral PR communication models in the Russian Federation. The proposed author's PR periodization methodology is relevant for the electoral public relations periodization as well. The legal regulation of the electoral process as one of the basic conditions for the transformation and periodization of electoral PR is mentioned. The revealed characteristics of the genesis of Russian electoral PR make it possible to record the incompleteness of the process of its institutionalization by the mid-2010s. The presented methodological grounds for studying elective public relations seem to be basic for further research in this area.