19.01.2013 Views

Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

5. Citizen Participation in the debates<br />

In the following section, focus is turned towards the citizens using the discussion boards.<br />

Indications of either mobilization or reinforcement are sought after through an<br />

examination of the activity on the forums.<br />

Two aspects of the citizens’ activity are highlighted; the average number of<br />

debaters in each thread <strong>and</strong> the degree of monopolization of the threads. The average<br />

number of debaters 11 ought to provide an indication of the interest in the electronic<br />

debates. Are there signs of political ‘town-hall’ meetings or ‘social clubs’ for the<br />

motivated? The degree of monopolization describes the average number of messages<br />

posted by each debater. The formula for the measure is<br />

Σm/Σd<br />

where Σm = the total number of individual messages in the discussion thread<br />

Σd = the total number of citizens posting messages to the thread<br />

According to Bentivegna (1998: 6), a high level of monopolization indicates that a<br />

relatively small number of citizens participate frequently in the debates while others are<br />

left out in the cold. In such a case, a mobilization scenario seems highly unlikely. Table 4<br />

shows the average number of users <strong>and</strong> the degree of monopolization for the partyassociated<br />

discussion boards.<br />

157

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!