The liberal bias of new media isn't working on the Russian soil (with the Russian soul)?

Every time I think about the opportunities new media such as blogs and social networks open for political participation of citizens, for the development of democracy, and how big the role was that they played during the last presidential elections in the United States, I ask myself: 

What is the present and future of this media in Russia? 

Are they able to play any significant role in the change of power there? 

Are they playing any important role in the democratization of the country right now?

The answer is much less then clear. 

Despite all the stories about Russian officals trying to control the Internet, we should confirm

 that Internet in Russia is still pretty free. First of all because Russian authorities and special services don't have any software to control information flow online. And second, because most of the people whose voices contemporary Russian establishment is concerned about during the election periods, don't use Internet or don't trust (by the force of Soviet habit) any information that comes from an "unauthorized" source.

However, most of those who use Internet in Russia don't hesitate to register their own blogs and 

profiles on social networks. According to the 2007 report by Russian web

 search server Yandex, there are 3,1 million of blogs in Russian Internet segment. That means that there is one blog for every 10 Russian speaking users (there are 30 million Internet users in Russia according to the information on the CIA web page). Not bad, taking into account that the same statistics for the whole world is approximately one blog for every 60 people.

Despite this optimistic view, there is no strong aspiration of users in Russia to use their freedom of speech online to solve their political problems. If you try to find a discussion about current political events on Russian Internet, I wouldn't recommend you to go to any popular Russian social networks (Odnoklassniki, VKontakte, or MoyKrug). Non of them has any application that would allow you to easily post a link from an article or express your support of a politician. Non of them has a substential group created by users for political discussion. 

But I wouldn't recommend you to look for any political discussion in Russian blogs either. Especially if you believe in a liberal bias of the new media as much as I still do. I wouldn't recommend you to look there not because there is nothing discussed about politics, but because what is discussed is usually even more regressive in the sense of democratic and liberal discourse than what you can see on Russian television controlled by the state.

I'm wondering if that means that the new media by themselves can't give a big hope for Russian modest democratic movement? Is the question again lying not in what are the media that are used, but who is using the media?

(Images used: 1. Official logo of Livejournal; 2. Picture from a protest action in Moscow against the censure in mass media on January 31, 2009 - by Denis Bochkarev)