The purpose of the article is to identify theoretical approaches to mass media role’s evaluation widely spread within contemporary political communication studies, as well as to pinpoint those of them that are most effective while analyzing journalists’ capacity to affect public conscience and – which is also very important – for defining ways to counteract media manipulations. Methodology and Approach. The main methods of the paper are content and discourse analysis which allowed us to single out the most commonly used tools of research on political functionality of mass media. Results. The author concludes that, firstly, many theoretical and methodological devices, used by Russian scholars, were initially borrowed from the Western discourse and, secondly, there is still no agreement on both the subject, theoretical, methodological and conceptual bases in the Russian political communication studies. Theoretical implication of the article is in the analysis of the most commonly used methodological approaches to examining political functionality of mass media.

research methods, theory, political communication studies, mass media, media influence

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