Politician Weblogs in Finland. Members of Parliament as Bloggers

This study deals with blogs written by Finnish politicians. The study is descriptive in nature, and the empirical material comprises of all blogs written by Finnish members of parliament (MPs). The method used in this research is content analysis, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches. This study examines what are the main features of these politician blogs and what factors seem to play a role in MPs' blogging. Blogs and other forms of new media have entered into people's everyday lives in the past few years. An ongoing change in the media as a whole also includes the field of political communication. The ways of doing politics are shifting as trends like Americanization, professionalization and personalization influence the processes. The relationship between politicians and media is changing, as the way of doing politics seems to be shifting increasingly towards gaining publicity. Blogging can be seen as a part of this attempt to gain publicity. Even though political blogging is a new trend, it is on the increase in both significance and quantity in Finland. With incisive analysis and alternative viewpoints as important aspects of blogging, interactivity apparently remains its essential contribution to politics and even to society. Out of 200 Finnish MPs 77 actively write blogs of some type. My study shows, how only 34 of these blogs are truly interactive, as most of them do not allow readers to comment the blog. The age, sex and party affiliation of the MP have some effect on their blogging, as differences were also detected between governing and opposition parties. Apart from a few MPs differentiated with actively updated and commented political blogs, most of the MPs' blogs appear to contribute little to citizen participation: it is my conclusion that the potential of the political blogosphere has not been optimally utilized by the MPs. Asiasanat:blog, blogging, political publicity, M