Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

• In the third article (Strandberg 2007), the focus is turned towards the websites of
the Finnish parties and the parties’ opinions concerning the importance and use of
their websites. The purpose of the article is to explore potential party patterns in
the parties’ opinions concerning the importance and use of their website, and the
actual contents of the websites, in light of several party specific characteristics. The
study has an explicit explorative ambition which requires two descriptive exercises
– to analyze the content of the party websites and to examine the parties’ ‘inside
view’ of their site. The study has a threefold nature in the overall thesis: one goal is
to empirically assess what the political parties are communicating via their
websites, therefore providing an assessment of whether there appear to be signs of
normalization or equalization evident from the analysis of the party websites (cf.
Margolis et al. 2003; Norris 2003). The article also addresses the question of
conditions potentially influential on on-line communication. Specifically, where the
first article focused on external conditions, this article is concerned with internal,
actor-specific conditions.
• The fourth article (Strandberg 2006a) is concerned with the campaign websites of
the Finnish political candidates running for office in the parliamentary election in
2003. The study primarily focuses on theoretically developing and empirically
testing the theories of normalization and equalization on the candidate level in the
candidate-centred Finnish electoral system and campaign culture (Ruostetsaari &
Mattila 2002). The article thus provides an additional level to the assessment of the
on-line electoral competition by political actors. The empirical analysis seeks to
examine predictors of both candidate on-line campaign presence and the
sophistication of the candidate sites. The article also analyzes the question of what
the Finnish candidates communicate on-line in times of elections.
• The fifth article 4 (Strandberg 2005) provides a further examination of the citizens’
on-line activity. The article focuses on Finnish citizens’ discussions on internet
discussion boards provided by the Finnish parties and one independent webportal,
prior to, during and after the parliamentary elections in 2003. The empirical
analysis is carried out through content analysis of the messages posted by citizens
on these forums. This article has two characteristics concerning the overall thesis
which merit attention. The article takes a deeper look into the online activity of
Finnish citizens. Also, through examining a form of on-line activity which requires
4 The article was originally published in Swedish in a refereed journal (Strandberg 2004). This original
article was then later selected by the Finnish Political Science Association for inclusion in the Encounters
journal. The article version used in this thesis is the English translation of the original article.
26