A new report has found that political discussion on Twitter in Finland is largely led by existing elites, that the medium entrenches existing hierarchies rather than challenging them, and that the public nature of the communication is a new forum for elites to use.
"The politics of Tweets—democracy, representation and equality in political publicity," a report funded by Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, is to be published on Monday.
The report looks at Finnish political figures and journalists on Twitter, finding that those who are active and actively followed form a “Twitter elite”, while the most popular actors form an inner elite within the elite.
Researchers found that the political Twitter ‘elite’ is largely from the Helsinki region and disproportionately supports the National Coalition Party or Green League. The media ‘elite’ is from Yleisradio, daily Helsingin Sanomat and commercial broadcaster MTV.
Rather than disrupting traditional hierarchies, the report’s authors say they found that Twitter usage tended to reflect the existing order. In last year’s European election campaign those election candidates with the most resources tended to use Twitter the most.
The report found positive and negative impacts on democracy. Communication is public, which increases transparency, but on the other hand many political figures use Twitter largely as an image management tool rather than a forum for real interaction.
