Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

The real impact of internet politics could indeed come through its adoption by such
political actors (Norris 2001, 238-240).
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In conclusion, it should be noted that the internet only has roughly ten years of history
since its rapid spread to the general public began. Norris remarks that the diffusion and
evolution of the internet:
“remains in process and the limitations of our ability to peer into the future of
the Internet is self-evident […] so it is hazardous to provide more than, at
best, an educated guess about the long-term consequences of new technology
for democracy”. (Norris 2001, 240)
This thesis has provided a ‘snapshot in time’ which, eventually, probably will be referred
to as the early years of the internet. Norris (2001, 240), nevertheless, stresses the
importance of analyzing the current state of the development. Correspondingly, the
snapshot taken in this thesis has been of an on-line political environment in a country
which arguably stands towards the front of the information and campaigning ‘evolution’.
The empirical findings of the thesis provide important information on the current state of
internet politics, the components shaping it, and its current impact on the politics in
general of representative democracies. The tentative prospects for the future presented in
the conclusion are, likewise, arguably more likely to be ‘educated guesses’ than pure
speculations. With this in mind, the conclusion of this thesis is that while the new
generations of voters could be turning to the internet for their political information, the
impact of the internet on the politics of modern representative democracies is, at least for
the time being, limited.
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