Kandidatbloggar i det finländska presidentvalet 2006: strategier och effekter

In the 2004 US presidential election, candidates established a new form of internet campaigning: blogs. This article examines the adoption of blogs in the Finnish 2006 presidential election. In the first round, four of eight candidates launched blogs. The aim is to survey how these candidates blogged and, additionally, to examine impacts of their blogging activities. The blogs and the blog posts were analysed to examine posting frequency, interactivity, hyperlinking, and content. With one exception, the blogs lacked commenting facilities for the readers. Few posts included links. Substantially, campaign events and political issues dominated although candidate personality was coming through. One-fourth of the posts criticized opponents. The blogs were seldom used for engaging readers in campaigning activities. Considering impacts, few web sites and blogs linked to the candidates’ blogs. Moreover, the electoral influence, assessed by national survey data, was low: only 2.7 per cent of the voters followed the blogs.