Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

identified two groups of parties on the basis of their answers to the party questionnaire.
One cluster scored significantly higher on how important they ranked the website
compared to other communication channels, and how highly they rated informative- and
engaging communication via their websites. These two clusters were hard to explain, or
differentiate from each other, in light of the theoretical backdrop. Thus, the Finnish
parties’ view of their website use is seemingly not influenced by any specific party trait.
The Finnish parties appear to have an impromptu approach to their websites.
Consequently, in determining how political parties look upon their own use of party
websites, the character of the parties is seemingly not generally decisive (cf. Gibson et al.
2003b, 86-90; Löfgren 2001, 23-30; Römmele 2003). Obviously, Römmele’s view (2003,
8) that the parties themselves play a large role in determining what role party websites
have for them is still valid. In fact, some findings in this study concerning individual
parties even followed the paths described by Römmele (2003, 14). Nonetheless, the
findings here have highlighted the problems of testing the ‘actor-constructivist’ view and
the difficulty of linking specific party traits to the parties’ ‘inside view’ regarding their
websites.
Concerning the second explorative research question – are there any patterns in
the contents of the parties’ websites which are traceable to the parties’ character in terms
of party goals, organization, size or composition of primary supporters? – the findings in
this article were rather clear. The automatic clustering algorithm found two clusters based
on the scores on the party website content indexes. The party websites belonging to the
first of these clusters scored significantly higher than the sites in the second cluster on all
four measured indexes; internal administration and information, campaigning and general
information, participation and bottom-up communication and website presentation and
sophistication. Apart from one exception, a dividing line between the two clusters was
found due to party size and resources. All websites in the first cluster belonged to the
parties with representation in the Finnish parliament (major and minor), while all parties
in the second clusters were fringe parties outside of parliament. Consequently, since
Finnish parties, to a large extent, rely on direct state funding based on the share of seats in
parliament (Djupsund 1990, 20; Nousiainen 1998, 72-73; Sundberg 1996, 150-151), both
the size and associated resources seem to have an influence in determining the content of
the Finnish parties’ websites (cf. Margolis et al. 2003, 57-58). Certain findings concerning
individual parties in this study do support the anticipated role of party goals in
determining their style of communication on their website (cf. Römmele 2003, 14). This
influence was, however, overshadowed by the influence of party size. Nevertheless, this
finding does indicate that the parties themselves play an important part in determining the
contents of their websites, but this influence appears to be due to having sufficient
resources available for the construction of the website rather than due to specific party
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