Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

Scholars have noted that some of the contextual features found in Finland bear
relevance on the internet activity of political actors and are thus relevant to the on-line
political environment. In particular, the partially individualistic, candidate-centred election
system and corresponding campaign culture as well as the lack of restrictions regarding
the purchase of campaign TV advertisments, are important to note. The fragmented
multiparty system merits attention as well. Candidate-focused campaign contexts have
been noted to spur innovation and dynamic use of websites by political actors (Gibson
2004). Open-media environments, where off-line campaigning often requires high
amounts of resources, have been argued to provide minor and fringe actors with strong
incentives for emphasizing internet campaigning (Norris 2003, 25). Since the theories of
normalization and equalization have been developed and mostly tested in majoritarian
two-party contexts, the highly fragmented Finnish multiparty system could provide an
interesting context for further exploring these aspects (cf. Lijphart 1999, 63). Cunha and
colleagues remark that multiparty systems could have implications for the on-line activity
of political actors:
“in party systems that are highly competitive […] parties will be more active in
exploiting the technology in an attempt to enhance citizen political
involvement than are parties in less competitive systems where, by definition,
victories are on larger margins and the distribution of strength among parties
is uneven”. (Cunha et al. 2003, 70)
4. Five articles
Five research questions for the thesis were presented earlier in this chapter; who are the
on-line political actors in Finland, what are they communicating, what conditions
influence this communication, what impact does on-line politics have on Finnish citizens
and what are Finnish citizens doing on-line. The questions cover several different aspects
of on-line politics. Lusoli (2005b, 160-161) has stressed the need for applying broad and
varying approaches in studies of on-line environments, or political web spheres, as he
calls them (cf. Foot & Schneider 2002a; 2002b). Accordingly, the thesis’ study of the
Finnish on-line political environment rests on five articles focusing on different sub-areas
of interest to the general topic. Moring (1989, 32-32) argues that using individual cases in
describing a general phenomenon has two major advantages: To begin with, the general
topic is highlighted from different angles resulting in a “broader experience”. Also, in
bringing together findings from several cases, the findings also shed new light on each
other. In this section, the general topic, purpose and research problems of the articles of
the thesis are briefly presented. The articles’ position within the thesis’ theoretical
framework and research questions are also discussed. It should be noted that discussions
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