Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

Introduction
“Thus for the first time we have an opportunity to create artificial town
meetings among populations that could not otherwise communicate” (Barber,
1984: 274)
During the 20th century, political communication experienced major changes. The
modernization of society weakened the links between political parties and voters and
increased the importance of the media in political communication. Where political parties
previously relied upon mass meetings and partisan press to communicate with voters, they
are now increasingly channeling their messages through private media outlets (e.g. Norris,
2001a; Salokangas, 1999; Swanson and Mancini, 1996). Journalists have developed an
independent professional identity and apply professional techniques in their everyday
profession (Altheide and Snow, 1979; 1991; Asp, 1986; Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995;
Carlson, 2000; Swanson and Mancini, 1996). The parties seek votes from all segments of
voters (Kirchheimer, 1966) and the citizens are finding it hard to separate party messages
from each other. The number of uncertain voters is increasing which, in turn, has resulted
in decreasing party membership figures and electoral turnout (Djupsund and Carlson,
2003: 40; Dalton, 2000: 19-36; Mair and van Biezen, 2001; Scarrow, 2000: 79-101;
Sundberg, 1996: 236).
The rise of the internet in the 1990s raised hopes of a revival of the weakened
political communication and democracy (e.g. Berman and Witzner, 1997: 1313-1321;
Dahl, 1989: 519-522; Norris, 1999a: 2-3). Compared to the traditional political outlets, the
internet has several theoretical advantages. The web is cheap and fast to use, multimedia
transmissions are easily achieved and publishing is not subject to editorial intervention. In
addition, the internet could arguably be regarded as the first fully interactive
communication channel (Bimber, 1999: 412; Coleman and Goetze, 2001: 5; Kamarck,
1999: 114; Stromer-Galley, 2000: 112).
Political discussion boards on the web have, from the viewpoint of participatory
democracy, been considered the modern equivalents of political ‘town hall’ meetings (e.g.
Budge, 1996: 28-31; Dahl, 1989: 519). The discussion boards resemble arenas in which all
citizens can discuss, debate and express their opinions on public matters (Bentivegna,
1998: 2-3; Hill and Hughes, 1998: 2-3; Norris, 1999b: 72; Rheingold, 1993: xxx). These
debates have the potential to increase the citizens’ political knowledge, political interest
and social capital (Barber 1984; Harwood & Lay, 2001; Shah et al., 2001).
However, there is still much uncertainty whether the theoretical assumptions
regarding the potential inherent in discussion boards will ever be realized in reality.
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