Old Wine in New Bottles?

Finland vs US 1999 Internet Campaiging Traditional Paradigm changing –Candidate, Media, Voter Understand who was using websites Understand the content of the websites Draw some conslusions

Similarities Both countries wired (1 st and 5 th in 2000) Finland and US focus on individual candidates

Differences Multi-Party vs two Party $7200 (average dollar amount spent on campaigning by Finnish parliamentary candidates in 1999) $352,000 (average dollar amount spent on campaigning by US congressional candidates in )

Theories Candidates would likely be –Challenger –Young –Male –Leaning Right

Theories Website content would likely contain: –Non-traditional Campaign Material –Negative attacks –Appeals for Volunteers and Donations –Interactivity –Multi-Media –Hyperlinks

Methods 1046 Finnish candidate websites Partisanship Gender Age Constituency Status (Incumbent or Challenger)

Methods 10% (102) studied for content Issues Characteristics Technology Positive or Negative

Results Candidates are: –Incumbents –Young –Female –Leaning Right*

Results Websites are: –Traditional Campaign Materials –Positive –No Appeals for Volunteers or Donations –No Interactivity –No Multi-media –Yes Hyperlinks*

Their conclusions Candidates are “praying to God, just in case” Traditional Campaign materials are safer Mostly preaching to the converted Candidate can control the message Cost of multi-media and interactivity too high?

“So far, they use the new medium in a traditional way. Hence, we doubt that the Web will fundamentally change the direction of campaigning in the near future”

Questions Were they correct, why or why not? Would we get the same results today why or why not?