After a thorough reading of “Old Wine in New Bottles?”, I came to the conclusion that although the findings were interesting and probably significant at the time of publication, the article serves now as more of a historical account of the use of the internet during election campaigns, as the technology of the web changed drastically in the last 9 years.

The article discusses a research study by Tom Carlson and Goran Djupsund found in the Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics from January 2001. In it Carlson and Djupsund analyze the 1999 Finnish election campaign from the perspective of the web presence of the candidates for Parliament.

Based on a few earlier studies Carlson and Djupsund theorize on the type of candidate who would use utilize internet campaigning and format for the website. Their hope was to compare the results with similar studies regarding U.S. internet campaining and internet campaigning in other countries.

Their choice of Finland, might, at first, seem like and odd or unsuitable country for comparison. However, they point out all the features that make Finland and the US and excellent comparison. First and foremost, in 2000 Finland ranked as the most wired country in the world, the US ranked fifth, (today Finland ranks seventh and the US ranks 15^th). Secondly, much like the US, the campaigning in Finland is centered on the individual candidate, rather than political parties.

There are some differences as well, and these were also noted by the authors. The biggest difference is that Finland has a multi-party system and in reality the US only has two parties. Secondly, the amount of money spent on campaigning in the 1999 Finnish elections was, on average, 7200 dollars per candidate, where as the US congressional candidates spent on average over 350,000 for their campaigns. Carlson and Djupsund speculate that this disparity may have affected the quality and sophistication of the Finnish candidate’s websites.

Lots of data and charts follow for several pages until some conclusions and a summary is reached. In general, internet campaigners tend to be young, female and incumbents. The candidates from the major parties tend to have independent websites whereas the minor candidates tend to have websites produced by their political party. Regardless of party affiliation, most internet campaign websites tend to adhere to traditional campaign material. The sites are top down in their dissemination of information and tended to focus on the positive characteristics of their candidates and their platforms, interestingly almost no negative campaigning was found on the websites.

As indicated earlier, what was fascinating about this article was its picture on the early days of internet campaigning. They concluded that the candidates themselves would have to learn how to utilize the internet more effectively. They were partially right but were not able to foresee the radical impact of the technology changing as well. Of course in 2000, the social aspect of Web 2.0 was nothing but a dream held by a few. Barely four years later and the functionality of the web had shifted significantly. The increase in blogging, Youtube, and social media websites like Facebook and Myspace have all changed the landscape and have lowered the barrier to entry and allowed for a true dialogue between the candidates and the voters.  The status quo that worked fine in FInland in 1999 would simply not fly in 2008, anywhere.

After the 2008 election cycle it would be interesting to conduct this study again to see how the results differ.

Here is a powerpoint presentation highlighting the key points:

old-wine-in-new-bottles

I found the latest info on wired countries here:

Most Wired countires (2/08)