The web-savviest political movementsin Finland today

• Have managed to lift their issues from obscurity to the big parties’ and/or national media’s agenda

Who are they?

• The anti-immigrationwing of The Finns orThe True Finns

• The Helsinki Spring

Here they come:

• The Finns’ wing…

• Estimated 4 percentturnout, if campaignedas an independentparty (Channel 4 news poll 23.9.2011)

• Levareges its power as an anti-immigrationmovement within the populist True Finnsparty

• The Helsinki Spring…

• A movementencompassing probablyup to thousands of university students

• Aims to boost the economy with a entrepreneurial ”startuprevolution”

Web-savvy, but different toolsThe Wing…- Closed events- Discussion forums, media website commentarychains and blogs- Anonymity

The Spring…- Open events- Twitter, YouTube, blogs

The Internet runs on love?

Criticism and hatred

• ”En vähäisimmässäkään määrin halua riskeerata tilannetta, jossa joutuisin maksamaan jollekin Afrikan sarven ihmissaastalle vahingonkorvauksia "kivusta ja särystä”.

• (Jussi Halla-Aho, MP TrueFinns on ”the humanscum of the Horn of Africa”.)

”Awesomeness”

A political party?

The Wing…

A ”party within a party”

Conscious of its’ ideology and methods

Already experienced in working w/ the politicalsystem and the media

The Spring…

Does not see itself as a political movement?

Unconscious of its’ distinctideology

Ready to align with anybodyfrom Sdp to Coalition party

Scope of action

Local Glocal

Origins of ideology

European counter-jihadism Libertarianism

Ideology

Nationalism

Anti-immigrant

Anti-EU

Protectionism?

Wealth distribution based on ethnicity

Globalism

Entrepreneurial capitalism

Free marketeer

Entrepreneurial immigration

Wealth distrubution based on merit

Political achievements

7-10 MP’s within True Finnsparliamentary group

Legislative initiatives & modest risingsupport in Sdp and Coalition Party

Conclusions and Q’s

• No political ideas grow without digital cultivation

• ”Old parties” live of adopting ideas from the Webosphere

• ”Old parties”ideological development has driedout along with their incapability to adopt to the new communication environment

• The Internet does not, for now, provide a platform for negotiation and deliberationbetween extremes

• Does the Parliament remain as the only suchfunctioning institution?

• Does the Internet as it now is actually worktowards a shattered society where decisionmaking is increasingly difficult?

• If so, should we make every effort to buildtools and develop practices for decisionmaking on the internet?