Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

Table 5. Comparison of average number of debaters, degree of monopolization and
average degree of intensity and liveliness for the discussion boards on the web
Topic
Aspect Politics Music
X X
Liveliness a) 0.63 0.71
Intensity b) 14.61 30.80
Debaters c) 3.08 4.20
Monopol. d) 1.31 1.54
N 567 859
a) The differences are significant t=5.975 (df=1241) p=.000
b) The differences are significant t=-9.378 (df=1236) p=.000
c) The differences are significant t=-9.381 (df=1406) p=.000
d) The differences are significant t=-6.651 (df=1391) p=.000
The non-political forum achieved significantly higher scores on most indicators. A higher
share of the web portal’s users preferred music over politics, as indicated by the average
number of debaters in Table 5. A further examination revealed that the highest number of
users in any thread was eleven for the political forum and 23 for the music forum.
Moreover, the debates on the music discussion board have a higher liveliness and
intensity than the debates on the political forum. Concerning the degree of
monopolization, however, the political forum is somewhat less monopolized. In general,
though, both discussion boards have a low level of monopolization. In total, the number
of discussion threads on the political discussion board amounts to merely 66 % of the
number of threads on the non-political forum. The findings in Table 5 thus indicate that,
given the same level of accessibility, more citizens chose music over politics. Moreover,
the non-political debates are livelier and more intense than the political debate. In
conceptual terms, these findings add support to the motivation-based reinforcement
theory.
7. Summary and conclusions
In this study, different aspects of electronic discussion boards have been quantitatively
examined. Two schools of thought, the mobilization theory and reinforcement theory,
have been fleshed out both conceptually and empirically. However, in retrospect, the
quantitative approach used in the study is associated with certain problems of validity.
Hence, individual-level changes in political engagement have not been studied. With the
applied method, one cannot prove that a previously politically inactive citizen has become
active on-line. Consequently, the findings must be regarded as tentative, as they provide
only an initial mapping of the on-line activity. In future research, survey- or interview data
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