Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

for citizens’ participation and political activity. Norris (2003, 43), for instance, concluded
that the websites of political parties in the EU countries did provide preconditions for
interest pluralism and equal electoral competition. However, she remarks, given the
limited on-line audience, on-line politics will have little or no effect on the actual
distribution of power between political actors (cf. Margolis & Resnick 2000, 73). This
serves to underline the need to assess the on-line activity of both the political actors and
the citizens in concert. If Norris had only studied party websites in exclusion, she would
likely have been rather optimistic regarding the internet’s influence on politics in general.
On the other hand, if she had only studied the citizens’ on-line activity, it is probable that
she would have been quite pessimistic about the possible impact of on-line politics.
Other scholars have also perceived a connection between the websites of political
actors, and citizens’ activity on the internet. Margolis and Resnick (2000, 14) remark that
political parties and candidates design their websites to influence the behaviour of those
who visit their sites, and that these sites urge the visitors to take action. Foot and
Schneider (2002a; 2002b) have stressed the need to combine both the political actors and
the citizens in any analysis of internet politics. They perceive a conceptual connection
between the “on-line structure” provided through the political websites of political actors
and the “political action” these facilitate for citizens (Foot & Schneider 2002b, 4-5). In
effect, these positions indicate two types of potential correlations between the websites of
political actors and citizens’ activity. One connection between the political actors and the
citizens, in times of elections, could be described as a pull-effect. The more citizens online,
the more likely political actors are to venture on-line to reach these potential voters.
Without an on-line audience, the political actors presumably put very little effort into their
websites, and focus their election campaigns towards other communication channels.
Conversely, if an on-line audience for political websites exists, the political actors are
logically more inclined to also emphasize their websites in their election campaigns. The
second connection between the political actors and the citizens could be perceived more
as a push-effect. In providing citizens with an on-line structure for political action (Foot
& Schneider 2002a; 2002b), the websites also spur the activity of citizens. Without such
an on-line structure, citizens would have no on-line venues for taking political action.
In summary, both the duality contained within the theoretical discussion
concerning the political actors and citizens, and the need to juxtapose these dimensions
against each other, are important components of the theoretical framework for this thesis.
This framework can now be schematically brought together with a typology of four online
political environments, as depicted in Figure 1.
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