knowing and not knowing: the internet and political information

ISSN 0080–6757© 2007 The Author(s)

Journal compilation © 2007 Nordic Political Science Association

Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30 – No. 3, 2007 397

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKSCPSScandinavian Political Studies0080-6757' 2007 Nordic Political Science AssociationXXXORIGINAL ARTICLESXXXX

Knowing and Not Knowing: The Internet and Political Information

Kimmo Grönlund*

Information is an essential element in meaningful decision making. In order to make qualifieddemocratic decisions, correct political information is required. Even though indirect democracyis mainly based on decisions taken by elected representatives, citizens need to possess relevantinformation on politics and understand the rules of the political game in order to cast a meaningfulvote. Recently, demands for more direct and participatory democracy in mature democracieshave intensified the debate on politically sophisticated versus ignorant citizenry. This articlefocuses on the interplay between the use of the Internet and political knowledge. First, the roleof the Internet in acquiring politically relevant information is deciphered. Second, an appliedtest of the virtuous circle hypothesis is carried out. It suggests that the most motivated citizensare also most likely to use the political opportunities of the Internet. Therefore, a third researchquestion is examined: Does the obtained political information accumulate into higher politicalknowledge levels among the Internet users? The data consist of the national election study of2003 in Finland. The results show that the role of the Internet in seeking political informationis still limited. Even so, a distinct group of citizens who seek political information on the Internetcan be identified. This group of ‘modern political citizens’ is rich in political information in manyways. Thus a virtuous circle does seem to exist. On the other hand, the data indicate that Internetuse itself increases political knowledge only to a marginal degree when other variables arecontrolled for.

Introduction: Political Information and the InternetPolitical information is a central aspect of democracy. Even though citizensin a representative democratic system do not need to form an informed opinionon every political issue, they need to be politically knowledgeable at a generallevel. Since indirect democracy is based on the delegation of power fromcitizens to representatives, the timing of elections is crucial: citizens need tohave sufficient knowledge of the political system and the political actors inorder to cast an informed vote. Also, and to hold the elected representativesaccountable for their actions, voters need information on the representatives’

* Kimmo Grönlund, Director of Research, Åbo Akademi University, Social Science ResearchInstitute, PO Box 311, 65101 Vasa, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]

398 Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30 – No. 3, 2007

© 2007 The Author(s) Journal compilation © 2007 Nordic Political Science Association

performance. Voters also need to be able to compare parties’ policies ina prospective manner against their own political preferences and, in retrospect,know enough about the parties’ records to give some weight to the credibilityof their manifestos. This article addresses the interplay between politicallyrelevant information and the Internet. Of special interest is the role of theInternet in acquiring political information as well as its possible influence onpolitical attention and political knowledge.

The possibility of exploiting information and communication technologies(ICTs) in democratic decision making has been suggested by several scholars.Prior to the expansion of the World Wide Web, these proposals typicallydiscussed the possibilities of direct democracy with the help of telephones,television and computers (e.g. Lewin 1970; Barber 1984; Dahl 1989). Quitenaturally, more recent proposals have emphasised the role of the Internet asa tool for more participatory democratic practises (Budge 1996; Ohlin 1999;Åström 1999; Norris 2001; Grönlund 2004a). In parallel, suggestions towarda new form of electronically assisted governance have been put forward(Perri 6 2004).

Political scientists also discuss the potential weaknesses of electronicallyfacilitated democracy. Whereas technology is fast and has a tendency tosimplify, democratic decision making is often a slow and complicated process(Barber 1999). Therefore, the possibility of introducing a direct form ofelectronic ‘push-button’ democracy is not necessarily a viable option todevelop representative democracy (Buchstein 2004). Nevertheless, the Internethas made information available almost everywhere and to everyone whopossesses a basic knowledge of computers. Whereas people earlier had tospend a great deal of time finding the right channel for information, anda lot of basic information was only to be found in a printed form, today’sworld is characterised by an information overload. Simultaneously, risingexpectations about transparency and openness in government have hadeffects on policy makers. More and more states, even those with strongpaternalistic and secrecy traditions, have been pressured into adopting lawsthat guarantee more citizen access to government information (Cain et al.2006). Moreover, a lot of this new information has been made availableelectronically. Therefore, the costs of acquiring relevant information arenowadays to an increasing degree related to filtering away irrelevantinformation and finding reliable data (Novek 2000, 23–4).

Whereas the increased habitual watching of television has been suggestedas alienating people from communal activities and civic engagement(Putnam 2000, 224–5), some scholars think that the new ICTs can promotepolitical debate between citizens (Sunstein 2001). Moreover, cyberspaceappears to be a place where the hierarchies of the real world are undermined;mainly because nobody knows if the person you are communicating withreally is male or female, young or old, white- or blue-collar (Jordan 1999, 87).


© 2007 The Author(s)Journal compilation © 2007 Nordic Political Science Association

Furthermore, the prospect of an active civil society via ICTs, even at a globallevel, has been seen as a possible way forward (Hajnal 2002). This kind of‘cyber-optimism’ has also been met with criticism. According to morepessimistic views, ICTs will only deepen the existing divisions between theinformation-rich and the information-poor.1

The focus in this article is on the interplay between the use of the newICTs, specifically the Internet, and political information. More concrete,three research questions can be identified. First, the role of the Internet as asource for politically relevant information is examined. Second, an appliedtest of the ‘virtuous circle’ hypothesis is carried out. This hypothesis suggeststhat there is a process of mutually reinforcing interactions in digital politics.The most motivated citizens are most likely to use the political opportunitieson the Internet (Norris 2000). In parallel, the hypothesis implies that thepolitically most disengaged and disinterested are largely immunised frompolitical messages on the Internet (Norris 2001).2 Thus, they would haveconsistently less political knowledge than the politically engaged. The Internetas a medium would then be less important than the content of the information– the medium per se would have a reinforcing role, rather than a mobilisingone. The empirical data consist of the Finnish National Election Study(NES) (2003).

The Importance of Political InformationPolitical information is a key component in most individual-based theories ofvoting behaviour. Rational choice theories, especially, tend to emphasise thecosts related to acquiring information in order to have the necessary knowl-edge to vote. Downs (1957) defined ‘instrumental rationality’ and pointedout that the costs of gaining information normally exceed the returns (i.e. thelikelihood that an individual’s vote is decisive in elections). In spite of this, amajority of eligible voters tend to vote in democracies. This fact is oftenreferred to as the ‘paradox of voter turnout’ (Green & Shapiro 1994). Possess-ing information about politics and political parties is a logical prerequisite ofvoting and other forms of political participation. Berelson et al. (1954, 308)conclude: ‘The democratic citizen is expected to be well-informed aboutpolitical affairs. He is supposed to know what the issues are, what their historyis, what the relevant facts are, what alternatives are proposed, what the partystands for, what the likely consequences are.’ In representative democracy,citizens need this information when they decide how to vote, or whether tovote at all.

Even though most scholars find that, at least in the best of worlds, citizensneed to possess politically relevant information in order to participate indemocratic decision making, empirical findings do raise questions about the



actual state of political sophistication among the citizenry. Since the 1960s ithas been known that the American public is rather ill-informed about politicalaffairs (Campbell et al. 1960; Converse 1964). Also more recently, a similar‘verdict’ on the American public has been returned (Delli Karpini & Keeter1996). Nor do British and French voters, in a West European context, seemto fulfil the normative ideal of sophisticated citizenry (Butler & Stokes 1969;Converse & Pierce 1986). On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume thatrising levels of education together with the documented increasing popularinterest in politics in most advanced countries should have an educationaleffect on citizens’ political knowledge (cf. Dalton 2006, Chapter 2).

The terminology related to politically relevant information is somewhatdiverse. First, there are the concepts of ‘political knowledge’ and ‘politicalinformation’. These are often, but not always, used synonymously. Lupiaand McCubbins (1998, 24) point to the distinction between ‘information’ and‘knowledge’ by stating that the former is merely data, whereas the latter ispeople’s ability to make accurate predictions. Second, we have the conceptof ‘civic literacy’, which is closely related to political knowledge. Civic literacyconsists of the ‘skills to act as competent citizens’ (Milner 2002, 3). Civicliteracy resembles another notion, ‘political sophistication’, which has beendefined as the quantity and organisation of a person’s political cognitions(Luskin 1987). Moreover, there is ‘citizen competence’ (Kuklinski & Quirk2001). ‘Competence’, as Sartori (1987, 117) has pointed out, can be conjoinedwith ‘knowledge’, but should be separated from ‘information’. Politicalsophistication and citizen competence relate directly to a cognitively orienteddiscussion on the interplay between political knowledge and civic education(Torney-Purta et al. 2001). This literature emphasises classroom-based civiceducation and its importance to the acceptance of democratic principles andpolitical participation (Galston 2001). Civic education of this kind is seen asan independent variable in relation to political knowledge, and this linkageis studied in psychological research.

Political information can cover at least three dimensions. First, informationcan pertain to the individual’s knowledge of the political system – ‘the rulesof the political game’. Second, information can relate to the individual’sknowledge of everyday politics – the current political debate and agenda.Third and partly intertwined with the second dimension, a voter can possessknowledge of the political actors, persons or parties, and their differencesideologically and in relation to policies. Even though possibly collinear inpractice, the three types of information are separable. In an empirical analysisthat attempts to assess the importance of voter’s political information, itwould be ideal to be able to measure people’s information on the politicalsystem, as well as their knowledge of the political debate and policy differences.

The measure instrument should cover the different dimensions of politicalinformation. Yet, this problem might be more theoretical than empirical.



Having conducted a special survey on political knowledge, Delli Karpini andKeeter (1993, 1185) conclude that ‘measures of national political knowledgein one domain can provide reasonably good – though not ideal – measuresof overall knowledge about national politics’. Furthermore, the authors inferthat political information is a relatively unidimensional concept and that acitizen’s level of factual knowledge can be measured with a short series ofsurvey questions (Delli Karpini & Keeter 1993, 1203). Political informationis not knowledge. It is, however, difficult to decipher how well people cananalyse and use the information they possess. The ability to process data isnormally neither measured nor tested in surveys. In this article, seven factualquestions that measure political information are used as an estimate of politicalknowledge.

DataEmpirically, the test case is Finland – a country whose citizens belong tothe most frequent users of the Internet in Western Europe and the world(Grönlund 2004b; Carlson & Strandberg 2005). What also makes the Finnishcase interesting is its electoral system, which is a proportional system basedon open lists. In the Finnish system, the voter must choose a candidate; it isnot enough just to vote for one’s favourite party.3 This fact means inevitablythat the Finnish voter needs to acquire quite a lot of information on bothparties and individual candidates in order to cast a meaningful vote.

Shortly after the Finnish parliamentary election in March 2003, a nationalelection survey was conducted. A representative sample of 1,270 respondentswas interviewed on a face-to-face basis. The survey incorporates a standardisedmodule by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). It alsoincludes a national module; and a part of the national module wasadministrated as a drop-off survey. In the drop-off part, a special section wasdesigned to measure the political role of the Internet. The drop-off surveywas answered by 753 people. In the empirical analysis, both the face-to-faceand the drop-off modules are used.

Political knowledge was measured through a set of questions in the face-to-face part of the Finnish NES. Altogether, there were seven questionspertaining to knowledge, with three of them carried out according to theregulations of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES). In thesethree questions, the respondents were asked to identify the party of the (bythat time already former) Prime Minister, Mr Paavo Lipponen, name Russiaas a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and toanswer correctly a question pertaining to the progressiveness of the Finnishincome taxation, whereas the remaining four questions consisted of itemswhere the respondents were are asked to name the four largest parliamentary



parties in the newly elected parliament in correct order according to the sizeof each party. For each item, four alternative answers were provided. Theoption of answering ‘don’t know’ was allowed but not encouraged (i.e. it wasnot among the offered response alternatives).

As a consequence of the Finnish electoral system, an interesting electroni-cally assisted phenomenon has grown since the middle of the 1990s: WorldWide Web-based candidate selectors. These selectors are based on the ideaof finding candidates with opinions that correspond to the voter’s opinions.These web-based tools are popular and all the leading media houses providethem on their sites. According to the media companies’ own figures, theselectors attract hundreds of thousands of Finnish voters prior to the election.4

At the candidate selectors, all candidates are first given the opportunity toanswer a set of questions pertaining to political opinions. The questions aredifferent at different media sites, but there are typically some 20 questionsthat measure the candidates’ opinions on economic policy and taxation,the welfare state and defence, as well as ideological and moral issues. Thecandidates first answer the questions on the web, after which their opinionsare stored in a database. Then voters can access the same site and fill in theirown opinions online. After this, the database will find the candidates that areclosest and furthest from the respondent. Most selectors nowadays have thepossibility of weighing important issues, thereby taking into account voters’intensity differences. Normally, the voter can either search in his or her ownconstituency, or in the whole country.

Even though candidate selectors are a good example of how to exploitnew ICTs in democratic decision making, they are not totally unproblematic.In an electoral system where seat allocation is based on the total vote of eachparty list, the voter should not just choose a candidate whose opinionscorresponds to his or her own without taking into account of the party thecandidate represents. There is an obvious risk of over-emphasising the roleof the individual candidate, whereas the selection of representatives is stillbased on the pooled party vote. In order to avoid this, some selectors nowalso provide information on the parties that are closest to and furthest fromthe voters’ opinions.5 The role of the candidate selectors is mapped in theempirical analysis below.

ResultsFirst we are interested in knowing whether the Internet differs from othersources of information when voters make up their minds. In the Finnish NESof 2003, voters were asked to estimate how much they followed the electionvia different information sources.6 A total of ten different media wereidentified in the survey. They ranged from traditional newspaper articles,



television news and debates to the parties’ and candidates’ webpages andelectronic candidate selectors. Table 1 shows the results. It displays theshares of respondents who have followed the election either ‘a great deal’ or‘rather a lot’, first in the whole sample and then according to demographical,socio-economical and political characteristics.

It can easily be seen that the political importance of the Internet does notoutweigh any traditional media, not even in as a highly ICT-penetrated countryas Finland. The three channels pertaining to the Internet are electoral news,political websites and web-based candidate selectors. Among the whole pop-ulation, electoral information on the Internet attracts attention by less than10 percent, which is minuscule when compared to news on television, theshare of which is 60 percent. Some 40 percent of the electorate watch at leastsome political debates and party leader interviews on television during theelectoral campaign, and the same share is inclined to read newspaper articlesabout the election. Advertisements in newspapers and on television areobserved by some 30 percent, closely followed, perhaps a bit surprisingly, byentertainment programmes with politicians as guests on television. Evenradio, a media channel whose importance has been in decline for years,attracted more attention from citizens than the Internet in the election of2003.

A thorough look at media consumption at elections draws a more diversepicture. The use of Internet-mediated channels is most common in the 25–34 age group, and not in the youngest age group as one might expect. Eventhough the youngest age group has the highest density of Internet use, theresult probably reflects the fact that both political interest and voter turnoutis lowest in the youngest age group in Finland (Grönlund et al. 2005). Notonly age, but also the level of education and party identity seem to explainvariation in the use of the Internet for electoral information. The higher theeducation, the more citizens seek electoral information on the Internet.When it comes to differences according to profession, students are the mostactive electoral ‘e-seekers’. Professionals and white collar employees use theInternet more than other professional groups, as do party members andvoters with a strong party identification.

There is also a clear variation in politically relevant Internet use betweenvoters according to their party preference. Every fourth elector of the GreenLeague followed the election via candidate selectors at least to some extent.Also, the supporters of the Conservatives and the Christian Democrats usethe Internet for electoral information more often than other parties’ supporters.The Social Democrats seem to be the least interested in following theelection via the Internet. In most socio-demographic groups, both candidateselectors and electoral e-news are more popular than parties’ and candidates’own websites. There are, however, certain exceptions: farmers, a groupthat generally does not rely on electronic channels, gets more information via



Table 1. The Importance of Different Media for Finns at the 2003 Election

‘How much did you follow the elections via media?’ Share of ‘a great deal’ and ‘rather a lot’

Television Radio Newspapers Internet

NA B C D E F G H I J

All 40 60 26 28 15 39 31 7 5 8 1,268

GenderMale 43 62 26 28 14 40 31 8 4 6 630Female 36 58 26 29 15 38 31 6 6 9 637

Age18–24 28 49 26 42 11 24 38 8 7 12 17725–34 29 50 21 26 13 32 28 12 8 16 20435–44 37 58 23 25 12 39 34 9 5 11 21745–54 38 59 22 22 13 38 28 3 3 3 23255–64 48 70 29 26 18 51 28 4 4 5 22565+ 56 72 36 32 21 47 31 4 2 2 212

Marital statusSingle 29 48 22 29 13 26 30 8 7 11 283Married 43 64 25 27 15 46 33 8 5 8 550Cohabiting 36 61 30 35 11 31 32 7 5 11 166Divorced 40 62 29 25 10 41 25 4 1 2 168Widowed 53 66 29 32 24 43 32 5 5 3 95

Mother tongueFinnish 40 59 26 29 14 38 31 7 5 8 1,175Swedish 36 65 16 15 25 53 29 6 4 9 186Other 40 60 31 31 – 31 20 – – – 25

EducationPrimary 38 55 29 26 18 37 29 2 1 1 238Secondary 35 55 33 33 9 29 28 6 4 6 141Vocational 37 55 26 28 13 34 30 5 4 5 337Upper secondary 39 62 24 33 16 38 32 9 8 13 343Polytechnic 47 69 26 24 17 61 42 10 4 13 90University 51 74 20 17 10 56 29 12 6 15 117

ProfessionFarmer 32 58 32 21 23 51 32 5 11 8 38Own business 35 51 23 18 19 46 28 4 5 5 57Professional 44 71 18 24 11 51 36 10 3 15 118White collar 43 65 25 29 14 42 30 8 8 11 146Blue collar 32 50 24 27 16 33 29 5 4 5 310Retired 54 73 32 29 17 47 30 4 2 3 300Student 29 53 26 40 10 31 38 13 9 19 146Unemployed 32 51 22 27 11 28 28 8 6 6 118Other 40 49 29 26 11 17 22 3 3 3 36

Household incomeI (poorest) 34 54 26 28 13 28 27 5 5 7 351II 43 60 33 35 21 40 34 7 4 6 293III 39 62 22 26 16 42 33 6 5 6 290IV (richest) 44 66 22 25 12 51 31 11 6 14 248



Party identityNone 28 47 18 22 9 28 23 4 3 5 418Weak 40 64 29 30 15 40 30 7 4 8 365Strong 48 67 31 34 20 46 38 9 7 10 420Party member 58 72 28 22 20 58 35 11 12 12 65

Party voted forSocial Democrats 48 72 32 31 18 46 37 5 3 4 246Centre 43 60 26 33 19 43 38 9 8 9 207Conservative 46 73 33 36 15 52 38 12 3 16 135Left-wing Alliance 40 63 31 34 17 47 26 11 6 10 90Swedish PP 32 67 14 11 22 58 26 6 2 7 121Greens 38 57 15 29 11 43 48 10 15 24 79Christian Democrats 33 50 19 20 19 27 31 10 13 10 70Other 61 67 33 33 15 53 36 6 6 15 33Prefers not to tell 38 57 28 22 7 32 20 3 1 1 93

Notes: A = Debates and party leader interviews on television. B = News and documentarieson television. C = Entertainment programmes with politicians on television. D = Televisioncommercials. E = Radio programmes. F = Newspaper articles. G = Advertisements innewspapers. H = News on the Internet. I = Parties’ and candidates’ webpages. J = Candidateselectors. ‘Professional’ includes managers. The shares within Swedish speakers and amongthe voters of the Swedish PP have been calculated without the language weight (which is usedin other analyses due to over-sampling of Swedish speakers in the survey).

‘How much did you follow the elections via media?’ Share of ‘a great deal’ and ‘rather a lot’



Table 1. Continued

the websites of political parties and candidates than via news and candidateselectors on the Internet.

The second research question pertains to a possible existence of a digitalvirtuous circle. The test of reinforcing political interactions is carried out bythe means of cluster and multinomial regression analyses. The question onthe importance of different media in the electoral campaign, already used inTable 1, is taken as a point of departure for the cluster analysis. Citizens aregrouped according to their use of different information channels in the election.Three groups can be identified using two-step cluster analysis. The largestgroup of citizens (46 percent) consists of politically rather inattentive people.They follow politics via media only to a moderate degree. The second largestgroup (33 percent) follows politics via all media channels, except on theInternet. The third and smallest group (22 percent) is politically alert anduses all media, including the Internet, as a source of political information.In Table 2, the differences in the media use of the three clusters arepresented.



The clusters of people have been labelled ‘sociable’, ‘traditional political’and ‘modern political’, following the old logic of sociable and political‘men’.7 There is a clear pattern in Table 2 concerning how much citizensfollow elections via different media channels. Whereas the sociable cluster isonly moderately engaged in following the election via any media, the clusterof traditional political people is highly attentive to all media channels outsidethe Internet. While virtually everyone in the second cluster identifies televisionnews as an important source, the same goes for three people out of four inthe ‘Internet-cluster’ and only for less than one out of three in the sociablecluster. Debates and party leader interviews on television compete ratherequally with newspaper articles. Also, advertisements and commercials arewidely used in the political clusters as sources for electoral information. Thecluster of modern political citizens follows politics via all traditional channels,also on the Internet. Their overall attention levels are, however, lower thanin the traditionally oriented political group. Almost 40 percent in the thirdcluster gains electoral information with the help of web-based candidateselectors, which is quite a high share and equivalent to the importance ofnewspaper advertisements and television commercials. Even though televisionnews is the most important source for electoral information among all clusters,the attention levels vary considerably between the clusters.

So far, we have been able to identify three groups of people according totheir alertness in relation to political information in different media. Addi-tionally, a distinct group of politically attentive people who also follow thepolitics on the Internet has been plotted. However, in order to test thevirtuous circle hypothesis, further analysis is needed. Table 3 makes useof a multinomial regression analysis in order to test whether the same kind

Table 2. Three Clusters According to Media Use at the 2003 Election

‘How much did you follow the elections via the media?’ Share of ‘a great deal’ and ‘rather a lot’



Cluster‘Sociable’ 14 31 8 6 5 17 9 – – – 569‘Traditional political’ 68 92 48 54 26 62 57 – – – 407‘Modern political’ 52 73 32 38 17 52 40 32 23 37 271

Notes: A = Debates and party leader interviews on television. B = News and documentarieson television. C = Entertainment programmes with politicians on television. D = Televisioncommercials. E = Radio programmes. F = Newspaper articles. G = Advertisements innewspapers. H = News on the Internet. I = Parties’ and candidates’ webpages. J = Candidateselectors.



of people belong to the clusters of traditional and modern political citizens.The cluster of sociable citizens serves as a reference category. The analysisin the table is explorative in a sense that it seeks to map socio-economic andattitudinal differences between the group of sociable citizens and the groupsof traditional and modern political citizens. The logic of testing is the following.If the persons who orient themselves towards traditional media and thosewho orient themselves towards traditional media and the Internet differfrom the group of politically non-attentive public in a similar way, it seemsprobable that political attention constitutes a virtuous circle. The groups are,however, expected to differ according to age. It is not probable that traditionallyoriented political citizens differ from the sociable group, whereas the groupof modern political citizens is expected to be younger than any of the two,given the nature and the user profiles on the Internet.

There seem to be only small differences between sociable and traditionalpolitical citizens. Neither political knowledge (as measured as a sum of correct

Table 3. The Determinants of ‘Political Citizens’. Multinomial Regression. Reference Category:‘Sociable Citizen’

Traditional political citizen Modern political citizen

B Wald p B Wald p

Political knowledge −0.22 0.3 1.36 7.0 **Male −0.07 0.2 −0.29 2.4Age/100 0.72 1.7 −3.77 30.1 ***Education −0.18 0.3 0.72 4.3 *Political interest 2.67 68.2 *** 2.18 34.0 ***Voted in the election 0.23 1.2 1.06 12.7 ***Party identification 0.16 0.8 0.66 8.5 **Widowed 0.60 2.6 0.58 1.4Married 0.57 5.9 * −0.06 0.1Divorced 0.16 0.3 −0.50 2.0Household income −0.68 5.7 * 0.29 0.8Unemployed −0.22 0.6 0.34 1.1Religiosity −0.29 1.1 −0.54 2.8Trade union activism 0.15 0.2 0.56 2.3Ideology from left to right 0.80 4.6 * 0.44 1.1Lives in city centre −0.17 0.4 −0.48 2.6Lives in the countryside −0.33 1.2 −0.02 0.0Intercept −2.30 29.6 *** –2.95 30.9 ***

N 1,041Missing cases (percentage) 17.8–2 Log likelihood (final) 1,927.4Chi2 305.4 ***Nagelkerke pseudo R2 0.29

Notes: *Significant at the 0.05 level. **Significant at the 0.01 level. ***Significant at the 0.001level.



information items) nor education or party identification vary between thesociable and the traditionally oriented political citizens. Being politicallyinterested is, strictly speaking, the only distinction between the two groups.Also marriage, high income and ideology towards the right are statisticallysignificant variables, but only at the 0.05 level. Traditional characteristicssuch as education, age or gender do not differ between the groups of sociableand traditional political citizens. When it comes to the differences betweenthe sociable and the modern political group, there is more to explain. Ageand political interest are the most important variables. As expected, youngpeople are more likely to belong to the modern group where the Internet isan important channel for political information. Also, and in contrast with thedifferences between the sociable and the traditional political group, voting,party identification and being politically knowledgeable are characteristicsthat increase the probability of belonging to the group of modern politicalcitizens. Furthermore, people belonging to this group tend to have a highereducation than those in the sociable group. None of the remaining test variablesdiffer between the sociable and the modern political group. Thus, being ornot being attentive to political information via media is equally distributedin Finland across urban versus rural areas, among trade union activists andnon-activists, among those who have a job and those who do not, and amongreligious and non-religious people. Since we are primarily interested indifferences between the clusters, the fit of the model is less important. Still,it should be noted that the model has a good fit, which is demonstrated bythe –2 Log likelihood, Chi2 and pseudo R2 statistics. Actually, if the fit of themodel were of primary interest here, a new parsimonious model with significantindependent variable could be a further step.

Does a virtuous circle operate in Finland concerning attention to politics?The results above indicate that the answer is multifaceted. On the one hand,we have been able to identify a group of people who combine online politicalinformation with offline channels. This implies that mutually reinforcingpolitical interactions are probable, speaking in favour of a virtuous circle. Onthe other hand, and contrary to the idea of a virtuous circle, it is clear thatpeople who do not use the Internet for obtaining political information, butdo follow politics via other media, differ less from the sociable group of peoplethan does the Internet-oriented political group. Whereas political interestexplains whether people follow or do not follow politics via television andnewspapers, there are more determinants when it comes to the distinctionbetween sociable and modern political citizens who follow politics via allmedia. Modern political citizens are politically knowledgeable, young, politicallyinterested voters who often also have a party identity.

Finally, let us address the third research question: the potential impact ofInternet use on political knowledge. For the dependent variable, we use theseven political information items of the Finnish NES. All in all, Finns seem



to be quite knowledgeable about politics: over half of the respondentsanswered six or all seven questions correctly. In this respect, Finlandresembles its Scandinavian neighbours. Citizens of the Nordic countriesseem to be politically knowledgeable when compared to other nations(Milner 2002). In an analysis of voters’ political knowledge in the time period1985–2002, Holmberg and Oscarsson (2004, 208) conclude that the Swedishvoter, even though not fully informed, is by no means politically illiterate.Danish data also pinpoint a similar pattern: Danish citizens who vote have ahigh level of political knowledge (Hansen 2006). In this respect, the Nordicvoter seems to differ from the old ‘truth’ of badly informed voters in theUnited States (Berelson et al. 1954; Campbell et al. 1960; Niemi & Weisberg2001).

In Table 4, the share of correct answers per political knowledge item isdisplayed. The mean of correct answers per group is reported as well. Politicalknowledge is mirrored against the same potential explanatory variables inTable 4 as in Table 1. The knowledge levels for Internet-users and non-usersare presented in Table 4 as the potential effect of Internet use is analysed inthis section. Even though Finns seem to have a high overall level of politicalknowledge, two questions have been more difficult than the others – thoseasking the respondents to name the fourth largest party in the parliamentand to identify Russia as a permanent member on the UN Security Council.These questions are, however, needed in order to distinguish betweenknowledgeable and non-knowledgeable citizens.

When differences are analysed according to socio-economics, gendercomes up as one of the most important determinants. The average share ofcorrect answers among men is 79 percent; it is 10 percentage points loweramong women. It is interesting that the greatest difference between the gendersis found under item 2 (the question on UN Security Council membership),where two men, but only one woman out of three, identified Russiacorrectly. Whether the overall gender difference holds in a multivariatesetting will be tested shortly with regression analysis.

Age affects political knowledge as well. The highest average of politicalknowledge can be found in age groups 55–64 and 25–34, whereas the youngestgroup has the lowest knowledge. The marital status of the respondentsaffects political knowledge correspondingly. Married and co-habiting citizensknow more political facts than single, divorced and widowed citizens.Especially widows and widowers possess weak or fair knowledge of politics;hardly a surprising finding considering the fact that most widowed peopleare women and belong to the oldest age group. When it comes to mothertongue, there is no difference between Finnish and Swedish speakers, butimmigrants, whose share is still low in Finland, seem to have less informationon politics. In this aspect, Finnish society has failed to fulfil Dahl’s (1989,Chapter 9) ideal of full democratic inclusion of its new members.



Table 4. Political Knowledge among Finns, 2003. Shares of Correct Answers

Information item

Average N1 2 3 4 5 6 7

All 94 51 76 86 85 82 43 74 1,268

GenderMale 95 68 81 88 87 85 49 79 630Female 93 35 71 84 83 79 37 69 638

Age18–24 88 46 80 72 71 68 34 65 17725–34 92 50 78 84 84 85 50 75 20335–44 93 58 82 85 87 87 44 77 21745–54 96 51 73 88 85 84 44 74 23355–64 96 58 78 94 92 88 46 79 22565+ 97 45 66 89 87 79 39 72 211

Marital statusSingle 89 51 76 80 77 78 42 70 283Married 96 55 82 92 90 87 49 79 550Cohabiting 94 51 77 81 86 82 41 73 166Divorced 93 53 71 86 82 80 34 71 167Widowed 95 27 53 79 80 74 34 63 95

Mother tongueFinnish 94 51 76 86 85 83 43 74 1,175Swedish 91 54 81 83 79 77 40 72 186Other 88 60 50 60 69 69 31 61 26

EducationPrimary 92 34 54 83 81 72 39 65 238Secondary 87 51 70 77 76 72 36 67 141Vocational 93 46 77 83 83 82 45 73 337Upper secondary 97 58 86 89 88 89 42 78 344Polytechnic 96 56 86 91 90 83 45 78 91University 97 79 89 97 96 90 56 86 118

ProfessionFarmer 97 50 76 92 92 100 74 83 38Own business 95 60 84 88 86 88 54 79 57Professional 97 77 92 96 95 93 53 86 118White collar 99 51 88 95 94 92 36 79 146Blue collar 92 44 73 81 81 78 45 71 310Retired 97 50 69 89 87 81 39 73 299Student 90 52 83 78 79 76 38 71 146Unemployed 87 45 64 78 75 71 43 66 118Other 83 46 51 77 74 74 36 63 35

Household incomeI (poorest) 92 44 67 78 77 74 39 67 351II 92 49 74 85 84 85 42 73 293III 96 53 80 92 90 87 47 78 291IV (richest) 97 66 87 93 93 88 49 82 247



Party identityNone 87 47 71 76 76 72 34 66 419Weak 97 52 78 89 88 84 47 76 365Strong 98 54 79 90 89 89 47 78 420Party member 98 62 78 98 97 95 57 84 64

Party voted for 2003Social Democrats 99 52 77 88 89 88 43 77 247Centre 96 53 77 97 96 90 54 81 208Conservative 98 62 84 94 94 95 48 82 134Left-wing Alliance 97 60 76 92 91 88 64 81 90Swedish PP 93 55 80 87 83 79 42 74 121Greens 96 66 85 91 91 86 54 81 78Christian Democrats 94 39 79 83 81 91 41 73 69Other 94 67 85 79 85 73 30 73 34No answer 94 48 66 86 84 81 38 71 93Did not vote 84 37 70 67 63 60 27 58 255

Uses Internet?Yes 97 64 87 92 91 91 48 81 394No 96 47 70 91 90 87 42 75 326

Notes: 1 = Former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen’s party (SDP). 2 = Russia is a permanentmember of the UN Security Council. 3 = Progressive income taxation. 4 = Largest party inparliament (Centre Party). 5 = Second largest party in parliament (SDP). 6 = Third largestparty in parliament (National Coalition). 7 = Fourth largest party in parliament (Left-wingAlliance). The shares among Swedish speakers and among the voters of the Swedish PP havebeen calculated without the language weight.

Information item

Average N1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Table 4. Continued

It is hardly surprising that classical socio-economic variables, educationand profession affect the level of political information. The ‘information-rich’ also know more about politics than the ‘information-poor’, as PippaNorris (2001) might put it. Among citizens with a university degree, the over-all share of correct answers is 86 percent, compared to 65 percent amongpeople with only primary school background. Professionals, farmersand white-collar employees are the most politically informed Finns.Accordingly, the income of the household affects political knowledge.Persons belonging to rich households seem to be more knowledgeable thanless well-off people.

The fact that party members possess more political information thannon-members is logical, as is the fact that the stronger the party identity, thehigher the level of political information. There are also differences betweenvoters of different parties. Generally, Christian Democrats, Social Democratsand voters of the Swedish People’s Party seem to have somewhat less political



knowledge than supporters of the Centre Party, the Conservatives, the Greensand the Left-wing Alliance. These differences between parties are, however, lessclear than the difference between voters and non-voters. Finally, citizenswho use the Internet also possess slightly more political information thannon-users.

In a simple frequency table we cannot control for several independentvariables simultaneously. Therefore, a multiple regression analysis isconducted in Table 5. Since the dependent variable, political knowledge,has as many as seven discrete values, an OLS regression was applied so that

Table 5. The Determinants of Political Knowledge in Finland. OLS regression

Initial FinalAmong Internet users only

B t p B t p B t p

Internet user 0.05 2.4 * 0.03 2.0 *Internet super user 0.00 0.0 0.00 0.2Used candidate selectors 0.03 1.7 0.05 2.3 *Male 0.07 5.4 *** 0.08 5.9 *** 0.08 4.2 ***Age/100 0.16 3.1 *** 0.13 2.6 ** 0.12 1.9Education 0.05 1.9 0.08 3.2 *** 0.07 2.2 *Political interest 0.13 5.0 *** 0.14 5.7 *** 0.15 4.2 ***Voted in the election 0.07 3.2 *** 0.08 4.0 *** 0.11 3.5 ***Party identification 0.04 2.1 * 0.04 2.4 * 0.02 0.8Widowed −0.08 −2.4 * −0.10 −3.6 *** −0.05 −0.7Married 0.02 1.0Divorced 0.00 −0.1Household income −0.01 −0.5Unemployed −0.02 −0.9Religiosity −0.03 −1.3Union activism 0.05 1.8Ideology from left to right −0.01 −0.4Lives in city centre −0.03 −1.6Lives in the countryside 0.00 0.0

Intercept 0.48 12.7 *** 0.45 14.5 *** 0.46 11.1 ***N 627 717 392F (ANOVA) 10.0 *** 26.7 *** 10.9 ***Adjusted R2 0.214 0.223 0.186

Notes: *Significant at the 0.05 level. **Significant at the 0.01 level. ***Significant at the 0.001level. All variables are coded into a scale from 0 to 1. Political knowledge, 7 values (sum ofcorrect answers). Education, 6 values (see Tables 1 and 2). Household income in quartiles.Religiosity, 4 values from ‘not at all’ to ‘very religious’. Union activism, 4 values from ‘not amember’ to ‘active member’. Self-assessed ideology from left to right, 10 values. Politicalinterest, 4 values from ‘none’ to ‘very interested’. Dummies: Internet user, used web-basedcandidate selectors, male, Swedish speaking, party id, widowed, married, divorced,unemployed, lives in a city centre, lives in the countryside, voted. ‘Internet super users’ arepersons who use the Internet daily or several times a week for at least 30–50 minutes persession. The rest of the persons claiming to use the Internet are classified as ‘Internet users’.



the coefficients would be easier to interpret.8 In Table 5, three models arepresented. In the first model, a set of 19 potential independent variables areentered, whereas the second model consists of the statistically significantvariables from the first model. The potential effect of Internet-use is testedthrough three dummies: one for users and non-users, one for ‘super users’9

and one for people who have used web-based candidate selectors. In thethird model, the model is replicated among Internet users only. This is donein order to see whether it actually is Internet usage that explains differencesin knowledge level or whether Internet users simply possess certain charac-teristics that co-vary with Internet use and only seem to explain politicalknowledge. A number of socio-economic and demographic variables arecontrolled for. In the initial model, the adjusted R2 is 0.21, and in the secondmodel with eight independent variables it is 0.22. Thus, the model explains22 percent of the variation in political knowledge.

We start by analysing the first two models (i.e. the whole drop-off sample).If we compare the impact of individual variables, age and political interestseem to increase political knowledge most. However, a glance at the t-valuessuggests that gender has the most uniform effect on knowledge. Men havemore political information than women. When it comes to age, separateregression analyses were carried out in order to trace possible curvilineareffects on political knowledge. It is, however, clear that age affects politicalknowledge in a linear manner. This verifies a previously established pattern(Strate et al. 1989, 456; Grönlund & Milner 2006), and deviates from the wayin which age affects voter turnout. The association between age and votingis curvilinear (Martikainen & Wass 2002, 37; Holmberg & Oscarsson 2004).Internet users have more political knowledge than non-users, whereas web-based selectors have no effect on the political knowledge of people. Contraryto the assumption based on bivariate frequencies, the level of householdincome does not have an impact on knowledge when we control for severalother variables. Party identification increases knowledge, as does voting. Thelatter suggests that citizens who vote actually do acquire information inorder to back up their vote decision. Finally, widowed citizens possess lessinformation than others. Education is not significant in the initial model, butsurvives in the final model and is almost as important as voting as a determinantin increasing political knowledge.

How should the regression coefficients be interpreted? Bearing in mindthat all the coefficients, including the dependent variable, are on a scale from0 to 1, one can conclude that if you are a highly educated elderly man witha lot of political interest and a habit of voting, your political knowledge levelis close to perfect. The sum of these positive coefficients is 0.50 and correspondsto four correct items, which is a big impact considering the high overall levelsin Finland. The overall level is also reflected by the intercept of the regressionequation. In this aspect, the impact of Internet use is marginal; the coefficient



of 0.03 is less than a third of one correct item. Frequent Internet use orweb-based candidate selectors do not affect political knowledge according tothis analysis.

The gender difference in relation to political information is by no meansunique in Finland. Rather, it seems to be a universal pattern (Grönlund &Milner 2006). Also in Sweden and Denmark, women have been found tohave less information on political facts than men (Holmberg & Oscarsson 2004,212; Togeby 2004, 197). Partly the difference can be a result of a structuraldifference in the propensity to guess. Men are more afraid of giving anon-knowledgeable impression and tend to guess more often than women.A study claims that because of this, 50 percent of the gender gap is illusory(Mondak & Anderson 2004). In the third column, where the regression isconducted within the group of Internet users, the previous pattern prevails.Gender, political interest and voting are the most powerful predictors ofpolitical knowledge also within this group. Age, however, loses its importance,which partly reflects the relative uniformity of age within the group. Of theInternet variables, users of web-based candidate selectors have a slightlyhigher level of political knowledge than non-users. This effect is, on the otherhand, small and only significant at the 0.5 level. Within Internet users, politicalknowledge is explained to 18.6 percent by the model.

ConclusionsThe empirical analysis of the role of the Internet in acquiring politicalinformation and possessing political knowledge suggests that the Internetplays a certain role, but that its overall importance is still limited. Nevertheless,there are societal groups where the Internet is an important source for politicalinformation. The test case was made of Finland where the Internet is, in prin-ciple, available to everyone. Mostly for practical and habitual reasons, thereis a digital divide in Finland between those who are over 65 and the rest ofthe population (Grönlund 2004b). In a Finnish context, the importance ofweb-based candidate selectors could also be established. Especially, youngishand educated citizens use these tools in order to acquire information on theindividual candidates.

A pattern of a ‘virtuous circle’, as suggested by Pippa Norris (2000, 315:‘People who regularly watched, read or surfed for news usually had greaterpolitical knowledge, trust and participation, even after controlling for socialbackground and prior political interest’), could not be identified in thepresent study. Our comparison of the characteristics of citizens who do notfollow politics with citizens who follow politics via traditional channels, onthe one hand, and with citizens who use traditional channels as well as theInternet in order to acquire political information, on the other, suggests a



more diverse picture. People who follow or do not follow politics via televisionand newspapers are mainly divided by a single variable: political interest.People who follow politics via the traditional channels as well as on the Internetseem to form a group of information-rich citizens. They are fairly young,possess a high level of political knowledge and vote in elections morefrequently than others. They may very well live in a virtuous circle, butwhether this also leads to positive spill-over effects where new groups becomemobilised into digital political participation cannot be answered with theavailable data.

When it comes to the possible impact of Internet use on overall politicalknowledge, the analysis suggests that Internet users are slightly more knowl-edgeable than non-users. This effect is statistically verified, but in practice itis close to non-existent. Furthermore, when checking how the determinantsof political knowledge survive within the group of Internet users, the patternof being interested in politics, male and voting prevails. Frequent or lessfrequent Internet use does not affect political knowledge. Also, the impactof web-based candidate selectors is marginal, even though it is positivewithin the group of Internet users. We cannot, in conclusion, verify thevirtuous circle in a Finnish context; nor can we claim that Internet use assuch would affect how much people know about politics.

The political role of the Internet is by no means limited to providinginformation. Online political participation has already become a mainstreampolitical channel in the United States. In a comparison of online and offlinepolitical participation, Best and Krueger (2005) find that even though thefactors predicting Internet participation often differ from the factors thatpredict more traditional ways of political participation, Internet and civicskills correlate with each other and distribute similarly across demographicgroups. Although not manifest, they verify the virtuous circle hypothesis:‘Because we expect policy makers to pay disproportionate attention to theneeds of those most active in the political system, these results suggest thatonline participation should reinforce the policy advantage of the mostprivileged members of society’ (Best & Krueger 2005, 203). Their study alsoreveals one major exception between online and offline political participation:young people do not participate less than older age groups in the onlineenvironment. This finding corresponds to the Finnish pattern of acquiringpolitical information. Thus, the Internet should already be seen as an importanttool in politics. Whether it will be used in the future as a channel for directdemocracy or as a platform for citizen consultation and deliberation remainsto be seen. In an era where most political parties are losing members in greatnumbers (Mair & Biezen 2001), citizens indeed need forums for politicaldebate and new channels for political participation. According to the resultsin this article, virtual citizenry per se is by no means less sophisticatedpolitically than offline citizenry.



NOTES1. The cleavage between those who have the possibility of accessing new information and

communication technologies (ICTs) and those who do not is normally called the ‘digitaldivide’ (e.g. Norris 2001). Logically, this divide could cause inequalities between citizensif some kind of e-democracy was introduced.

2. A similar phenomenon is sometimes labeled ‘reinforcement’, implying that the existingcleavages of the offline world are reinforced virtually. In a similar manner, an oppositehypothesis is called ‘mobilisation’, implying the possible activating effects of the Internet(cf. Strandberg 2006).

3. The Finnish electoral system consists of multi-member constituencies. In the election of2003, the constituency size varied between 6 and 33 MPs. The number of seats is decidedin each election based on population statistics. Additionally, the constituency of theautonomous Åland is a single-member district. The seats are allocated to party listsaccording to the d’Hondt formula within the constituencies. There is no legal electoralthreshold.

4. In the presidential election of 2006, the largest commercial television channel, MTV3,reported that its candidate selector was accessed by some 500,000 users (source: E-mailfrom Jaakko Alasaarela, ZEF Solutions, 13 October 2006).

5. The opinion of the party is measured differently at different sites. The Finnish broadcastingcompany, YLE, let the party headquarters answer the questions, whereas the privatecompany Sanoma aggregated party opinions based on the individual candidates’ answersper party.

6. The alternatives were: ‘a great deal’, ‘rather a lot’, ‘only little’, ‘not at all’ and ‘don’t know’.7. Berelson et al. (1954, 323) also include a category of ‘ideological men’, which consists

of politically active partisan voters (e.g. party members).8. In a control analysis using ordinal logistic regression (Plum logit), the obtained OLS

patterns were confirmed.9. The group of Internet-users in the survey was divided into 246 ‘super’ users and 150

‘normal’ users. See Table 5 for details of classification. The possible collinearity betweenthe Internet variables was checked and proved not to be a statistical problem in theregression analyses.

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knowing and not knowing: the internet and political information

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