Parties, Candidates and Citizens On-Line - Åbo Akademi

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Article III It’s the Inside that Counts? - An Explorative Analysis of Finnish Parties’ Opinions concerning the Importance and use of their Websites, and Website Contents, in Relation to Party Characteristics Forthcoming, Scandinavian Political Studies © Nordic Political Science Association. Reproduced with permission.
Introduction Party communication has evolved in different stages over time (Farrell & Webb 2000, 103-108; Norris 2001a, 137-149; Plasser & Plasser 2002, 6). Recently, new communication technologies have given the political actors new campaign tools and communication channels (Hansen et al. 2005, 2; Norris 2001a, 120-136; Smith 2002, 175). The rise of the internet and other information and communication tools (ICTs) raised a considerable amount of scholarly attention as to its impact on party communication (see discussion in Norris 2003, 23-24). The internet is a relatively cheap and fast communication tool; large amounts of information and multimedia can be published almost instantaneously. It also enables interactivity, two-way communication and offers an opportunity to bypass traditional mass-media in getting the political messages to the public (Kamarck 1999). Thus, the internet could enhance both the top-down and the bottom-up information currents surrounding political parties (cf. Norris 2003, 26; Römmele 2003, 9-11). The web could be used for the dissemination of top-down information such as broadcasting or narrowcasting of political messages, catch-all strategies or targeting of specific voter segments, the use of more multimedia and political sound bites. Also as Ward et al. argue (2003, 16-18), the use of ICTs could bring about a return to more traditional forms of party campaign communication in emphasising information over sound bites, personalized campaigning over catch-all strategies, interactive relationships over topdown information and decentralized campaigning over centralised. Evidently, there is a noticeable uncertainty concerning the potential effects of the web on party communication. However, Römmele (2003, 8) has provided an insightful view on how the usage of ICTs by political parties could be considered. She argues that: “…new ICTs will play different roles for different parties […] The impact of innovations such as the Internet on political actors is in part a function of their inherent technical capabilities, but also a product of the context in which they are used” (Römmele 2003, 8) In order to better understand how ICTs will be implemented by political parties one should take the influence of the actual users of the technology, i.e. the parties themselves, into account (Gibson et al. 2003b, 86-90). This theoretical view, which I choose to call an ‘actor-contructivist’ view, is also traceable in other studies as well (e.g. Löfgren 2001; Pedersen & Saglie 2005). In her study, Römmele (2003, 15) mainly considered the usage of websites by political parties in relation to their overall goals and strategies (cf. Gibson 86
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Kim Strandberg Studies of Politics
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PARTIES, CANDIDATES AND CITIZENS ON
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CIP Cataloguing in Publication Stra
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Jag vill även ta tillfället i akt
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C. Summary & Conclusions ..........
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List of tables Article I: Table 1.
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A. Introduction
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26; Römmele 2003, 9-11). Therefore
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these scholarly visions (e.g. Corra
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2003b; Gibson & Ward 2002). Regardi
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Some further comments regarding the
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for citizens’ participation and p
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providing the kind of structure for
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To further examine the central comp
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Scholars have noted that some of th
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• In the third article (Strandber
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References Barber, B. 1984. Strong
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Lusoli, W. 2005b. “The Internet a
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B. The articles
Page 45 and 46: Introduction Two specific theories
Page 47 and 48: proportional systems. It is therefo
Page 49 and 50: egulation of political advertising
Page 51 and 52: Because the study is case-oriented
Page 53 and 54: the discussion of the variable, the
Page 55 and 56: Table 1. Operationalizations of the
Page 57 and 58: There were no contradicting cases f
Page 59 and 60: dramatically if a different coding
Page 61 and 62: of democratic status and the usage
Page 63 and 64: References Altheide, D. & Snow, R.
Page 65 and 66: Norris, P. (2003) ‘Preaching to t
Page 67 and 68: Appendix B: studies associated with
Page 69 and 70: ABdE+AbdE = AdE BCdE+BcdE = BdE Fin
Page 71 and 72: 1. Introduction Voter turnout in th
Page 73 and 74: integration [9,10]. A study by Tiil
Page 75 and 76: 3. Data and methodology Our focus o
Page 77 and 78: provided the bulk of the sites and,
Page 79 and 80: YLE, the state-owned Finnish Broadc
Page 81 and 82: 4.4. The on-line candidates: a clos
Page 83 and 84: 4.4.3. What kind of candidates did
Page 85 and 86: sources during the campaign. The qu
Page 87 and 88: The results presented hitherto are
Page 89 and 90: ecome involved in their campaigns.
Page 91 and 92: References [1] H. Schmitt, The Euro
Page 93: Appendix A. Abbreviated coding temp
Page 97 and 98: pursuit of executive office, policy
Page 99 and 100: 2001, 30; Pedersen & Saglie 2005, 3
Page 101 and 102: and efforts into using the web for
Page 103 and 104: finally, engaging communication 3.
Page 105 and 106: Finally, concerning the informative
Page 107 and 108: Nousiainen 1998, 55-59; Sundberg 19
Page 109 and 110: sophistication index. These parties
Page 111 and 112: (cf. Strom 1990, 570), and conseque
Page 113 and 114: identified two groups of parties on
Page 115 and 116: Notes: 1 As of November 16th 2005,
Page 117 and 118: Kitchelt, H. 2001. ‘Partisan Comp
Page 119 and 120: Appendix: Questionnaire scales Labo
Page 121 and 122: Targeting of specific voter segment
Page 124 and 125: Article IV On-line Campaigning - An
Page 126 and 127: Patterns of candidate on-line elect
Page 128 and 129: elements of interest pluralism (cf.
Page 130 and 131: The Finnish context As was briefly
Page 132 and 133: RQ1: How much predicting power do i
Page 134 and 135: stored locally two weeks prior to t
Page 136 and 137: Table 2. Logistical regression mode
Page 138 and 139: Table 4. Candidate website function
Page 140 and 141: Table 5. OLS multiple regression mo
Page 142 and 143: Table 6. OLS multiple regression mo
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affiliated party, even in the candi
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than their rivals (Margolis et al.
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References Altheide, David and Robe
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Norris, Pippa (2001a) A Virtuous Ci
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Campaigning Additive index: 1 point
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Article V “Town Hall” Meetings
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Hence, one must question whether th
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(Coleman and Goetze, 2001: 16; Norr
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Barber mentions that it is only whe
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of user preferences. If internet po
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Table 2. Average degree of liveline
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5. Citizen Participation in the deb
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Over time, there is also a slight,
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would significantly enhance our und
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Notes 1 According to the Nua Intern
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Kamarck, E. 1999. ”Campaigning on
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C. Summary and conclusions A discus
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perspective, the articles have been
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predicting candidate website functi
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articles in the thesis. In general,
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Finnish voters’ propensity to loo
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they did not appear to “become mo
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organizational, financial […] res
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The real impact of internet politic
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Norris, P. 2003. “Preaching to th
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