Introduction

This study examines how political media consumption, i.e. the use of different media for the acquisition of political information, affects the propensity among non-resident citizens to participate in origin-country elections. Voting from abroad has existed since the early twentieth century, but for a long time the right to vote was restricted to military and diplomatic personnel stationed abroad. However, as voting rights have expanded and access to electoral participation from abroad has been improved (e.g. through postal voting), the issue has become increasingly relevant (Lafleur Reference Lafleur2013; Arrighi and Bauböck Reference Arrighi and Bauböck2017; Peltoniemi Reference Peltoniemi2018). Over the same period, the media landscape and communication technology have undergone a radical transformation, improving the possibilities for external voters to follow politics in their country of origin. With the proliferation of satellite television, and later Internet-based communication (e.g. smartphones, social media, streaming services), external voters have gained access to permanent and instantaneous sources of information of origin-country news (Christiansen Reference Christiansen2004; Lafleur Reference Lafleur2013). From media, citizens get information about topical political issues and about party and candidate stances on those issues; information that is important for casting an informed vote. While there is abundant research demonstrating that media consumption is key to political mobilization in domestic contexts (see Strömbäck Reference Strömbäck2017), corresponding research focusing on external voters is more limited in scope (Lafleur and Sánchez-Domínguez Reference Lafleur and Sánchez-Domínguez2015; Gherghina and Tseng Reference Gherghina and Tseng2016).

Hence, we want to examine how different forms of political media consumption affect the propensity to vote in origin-country elections. More specifically, we study if consumption of political news among external citizens has a mobilizing effect in line with what previous research has found for domestic politics and to what extent it matters if you consume political news from the country of origin and the country of residence. Furthermore, we explore the extent to which the potential mobilizing effect of the following politics is homogenous across different media formats (traditional or social media) used by the respondents.

We rely on a survey of Finnish external citizens (n = 1974) based on a stratified random sample of 4,800 Swedish-speaking Finnish non-resident citizens in 15 countries. The sampling method is worth highlighting, since surveys of external citizens generally are limited to convenience samples and a small number of countries (Ahmadov and Sasse Reference Ahmadov and Sasse2016). Moreover, due to its open-list proportional electoral system, in which voters need to identify a single candidate to cast their vote for (from a large selection of contestants), Finnish parliamentary elections present a challenging context for external voters to navigate. Hence Finnish external citizens can be considered a most-likely case for finding an effect of politically oriented media consumption.

The findings from our study show that following politics in the country of origin substantially increases the likelihood of participating in origin-country elections, an effect found for both traditional media channels and for social media. A corresponding pattern is not found for following politics in their country of residence. This indicates that political mobilization is not driven by the attention paid to politics in general, but rather that the mobilizing effect of political media consumption is specifically related to the source and content of the media in question. The findings appear very robust and hold under control for a variety of factors known to influence participation in elections.

Information, media consumption, and voting in elections

Information is key to political mobilization and participation in elections. Information helps voters to discover politically relevant issues and problems and to identify their personal political preferences and interests. Access to information allows citizens to match their preferences with those of a political party or a candidate and make well-grounded decisions about which political alternative to vote for (Carmines and Stimson Reference Carmines and Stimson1980). Hence, it is not surprising that more knowledgeable people tend to participate in elections more actively than those who are less knowledgeable (Delli Carpini and Keeter Reference Delli Carpini and Keeter1996).

Information on political issues is generally gathered from the news media, and research has convincingly established a positive link between media usage and various forms of political participation. Such a positive link is found for turnout in elections (Prior Reference Prior2005), as well as for other forms of political participation (Liu et al. Reference Liu, Shen, Eveland and Dylko2013). Media usage, and, in particular, politically oriented news consumption, seems to function as a positive spiral, with increased usage stimulating interest (Boulianne Reference Boulianne2011; Strömbäck and Shehata Reference Strömbäck and Shehata2010), political efficacy (Aarts and Semetko Reference Aarts and Semetko2003; Hansen and Pedersen Reference Hansen and Pedersen2014), as well as political trust (Strömbäck et al. Reference Strömbäck, Djerf-Pierre and Shehata2016), which, in turn, furthers political participation in general, including turnout in elections.

Today, through digital and traditional news media, voters have access to more options in terms of the media environment (Shehata and Strömbäck et al. Reference Shehata and Strömbäck2021), but also to more information than ever before. There is an increased number of channels for news consumption, and these channels are easily available to use through various platforms. This has been described as a change from a low-choice to a high-choice media environment (Strömbäck Reference Strömbäck2017). A greater supply does, however, not necessarily imply higher consumption of political news. Studies point rather towards a greater differentiation across groups of citizens and a growing share of people who hardly follow the news at all (Edgerly et al. Reference Edgerly, Vraga, Bode, Thorson and Thorson2018). The increasingly fragmented media environment also suggests that politically uninterested people are less likely to be incidentally exposed to news, which points towards even stronger differences in political engagement and activity among high and low consumers of political news. The positive mobilizing effects of media usage found for traditional media channels have, however, also been identified for digital social media (Boulianne Reference Boulianne2015; de Zuniga et al. Reference Gil de Zúñiga, Jung and Valenzuela2012; Dimitrova et al. Reference Dimitrova, Shehata, Strömbäck and Nord2014).

Particularly relevant from the perspective of this study, is that the contemporary high-choice media environment (Strömbäck Reference Strömbäck2017) is highly transnational. With the changing media landscape, it follows that it has become easier for citizens to keep themselves informed about political affairs in countries in which they do not live. Indeed, one of the most important elements differentiating the present migration domain from that of other periods in history, is the vastly improved possibilities to keep in contact with the country of origin (Ros Reference Ros, Alonso and Oiarzabal2010). Not too long ago, the proliferation of satellite television and Digital Broadcasting Satellite (DBS) technology was considered revolutionary in the way it allowed emigrants to engage in transnational media consumption, by giving access to much of the same information that their co-nationals, still living in the country of origin, have access to (Christiansen Reference Christiansen2004). Today in an age of widespread Internet penetration and mobile technology, emigrants have immediate access not only to their country of origin’s television and radio stations but also to the newspapers and other media. Moreover, through social media, video conferencing, and Internet SMS services, non-resident citizens have the possibility to interact directly with residents from the country of origin, almost as if they would live there (Komito Reference Komito2011; Metykova Reference Metykova2010).

That said, the growing differences in political media consumption identified within many countries (Edgerly et al. Reference Edgerly, Vraga, Bode, Thorson and Thorson2018) can be expected to be even more enhanced among non-resident citizens. Interest in following the country of origin’s media is, hence, likely to vary significantly between groups of non-resident citizens (Lafleur Reference Lafleur2013). They are also likely to be interested in transnational media consumption for different reasons. Some will consume media to stay informed about the social and political developments of their country of origin, and others will be more interested in keeping up with their favourite sports team (Metykova Reference Metykova2010).

Participating in Finnish elections from abroad

Institutional factors play a very important role for turnout when voting from abroad. Until recently, Finland relied on in-person voting as the method for voting from abroad. A vote was cast in a designated polling place (e.g. embassy) in advance (early voting). For the latest parliamentary election in 2019 there was a total of 219 advance polling stations in 86 countries available to Finnish external citizens (Ministry of Justice 2021). However, prior to the parliamentary elections in 2019, postal voting was also introduced as a method for voting from abroad in Finnish elections, thus significantly improving the possibilities to vote in Finnish national elections and levelling the field of electoral participation for Finnish non-resident citizens (Nemcôk and Peltoniemi Reference Nemčok and Peltoniemi2021).

Despite the practice of voting becoming easier for external Finnish voters, the Finnish electoral system presents its own challenges to external voters. In fact, we think that the Finnish electoral system represents a context in which politically oriented news consumption is very likely to have a mobilizing effect on external voters. Finland has an open-list proportional electoral system with mandatory preferential voting. Votes are cast for individual candidates nominated by parties in 13 constituencies, and it is not possible to cast a vote for a collective party list. The total number of preference-votes cast for candidates nominated by a specific party determines how many seats that party wins. The electoral system has a very simple structure, with each voter casting a vote for a single candidate by writing the number of that candidate on the ballot. Despite its simplicity, the system offers many challenges to voters, related to information processing. Voters need to identify a single candidate out of a large selectionFootnote ¹ (Marcinkiewicz and Stegmaier 2015).

The task of identifying a single candidate out of a large number of nominees is likely to be even more challenging for voters who are living abroad since it involves a great deal of information processing. Since it is not possible to cast a vote for a collective party list, voters cannot simply rely on habitual behaviour and vote for a party they identify with. Rather they need updated information on the candidates running for their preferred party. Moreover, some of the relatively easily available cues that domestic voters apply to identify a suitable candidate, such as roots in the local community (Shugart et al. Reference Shugart, Valdini and Suominen2005), might be irrelevant for voters abroad. This leads us to conclude that Finland is a most-likely case for finding a mobilizing effect of political news consumption (Table 1).

Table 1

Factor analysis of eight items of political media consumption in country of origin and of residence (Promax rotation, structure matrix)

The bolded numbers are just there to highlight the most relevant variables for each factor

Data and methods

The study relies on a survey of non-resident Finnish citizens conducted in the aftermath of the 2019 parliamentary elections in Finland. The invitation to participate in an online survey was distributed by mail to a disproportionate stratified random sample of 4 800 Swedish-speaking Finnish citizens in 15 countries, drawn from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency (https://dvv.fi/en/digital-and-population-data-services-agency) register on Finnish citizens living abroad.Footnote ² With 1974 completed responses, it gives us a response rate of 41 per cent. Since we rely on a disproportionate stratified sample, we have weighted the data according to the actual size of the diaspora in each country in our analyses (see Appendix A).

It should be noted that our survey was conducted among a sub-group of Finnish non-resident citizens, namely Swedish-speaking Finns. Swedish-speaking Finns, or Finland-Swedes, represent a linguistic minority in Finland, speaking one of the country's two official languages, Swedish. From an institutional perspective, being a Swedish-speaking Finn living abroad is no different than being Finnish-speaking. As an officially bilingual country, Finland provides its citizens with all necessary official information on voting practices and regulations in both Finnish and Swedish (Language act 2003). Moreover, the socio-demographic and socio-economic composition of the non-resident Swedish-speaking Finns are similar to non-resident Finns in general (Harjula and Himmelroos Reference Harjula and Himmelroos2020). The biggest difference in political behaviour between Swedish and Finnish-speaking Finns is that a majority of the Swedish-speakers vote for an ethnic minority party, The SFP (Bengtsson and Grönlund Reference Bengtsson and Grönlund2005). The migration pattern of Swedish-speaking Finns, also, deviates somewhat from that of the Finnish-speaking Finns. The Swedish-speaking Finns are substantially more likely to emigrate than the Finnish-speaking Finns (Kepsu Reference Kepsu2016), and although Sweden is the most common destination for both Swedish-speaking and Finnish-speaking Finns, Swedish speakers are more likely to migrate to Sweden (Statistics Finland 2019).

Concluding discussion

In this study, we examine the extent to which different types of media usage affect electoral participation in the country of origin among non-resident citizens. In line with previous research on media consumption and political participation, we expected a positive effect from political media consumption on participation in elections.

Our outlined expectations of a positive link between consumption of political news in media and participating in elections from abroad were indeed confirmed. A non-trivial effect was identified for both traditional media channels and for social media, and these effects remained even when controlled for socio-demographic and other political factors. Our third hypothesis suggesting that following politics in the country of residence is not positively related to turnout in origin-country elections, was also supported. Interestingly, we even identified a relatively strong, negative relationship for following residence-country politics through social media, suggesting that the more someone follows residence-country politics in social media, the less likely they are to turn out in origin-country elections. We assume that using social media to follow residence-country politics indicates greater integration in the host country, which, in turn, may reduce the interest to take part in origin-country politics. This finding also relates to our fourth hypothesis suggesting that the format of the media whereby external voters obtain information does not have an impact on their propensity to vote. While the fourth and last hypothesis is largely supported by our findings regarding origin-country political media consumption, the finding that residence-country social media consumption has a negative relationship with the propensity to vote, contradicts this hypothesis.

In sum, we find substantial relationships between political media consumption and the propensity to vote among external voters, pointing towards a distinct mobilizing effect of following political affairs in the media. The findings have lined up well with both of our expectations and the relatively limited previous research on the subject. The main contribution of this study is that it distinguishes between political media consumption in the country of origin and of residence and, thereby clarifies the relationship between political media consumption and turnout among external voters. Previous research on these matters is limited, and the extent of the connection between media consumption and turnout that has been examined, means that the findings have been somewhat contradictory (Careja and Emmenegger Reference Careja and Emmenegger2012; Lafleur and Sánchez-Domínguez Reference Lafleur and Sánchez-Domínguez2015; Gherghina and Tseng Reference Gherghina and Tseng2016).

Generalizability is always going to be a challenge when examining a specific case. To what extent are our findings regarding political media consumption and the propensity to vote among external Swedish-speaking Finnish citizens relevant to other groups of external citizens? Due to the information-intensive nature of the Finnish electoral system, our case can be considered a most-likely case for identifying a strong link between political media consumption and voting. It is hence plausible that the effect of closely following politics in the country of origin is slightly less important for voting in other contexts where external voters can cast a vote for a party list and, to a larger extent, are able to base their voting decision on a previously established party identification (see also Vintila et al. Reference Vintila, Pamies and Paradés2023 in this special issue).

It is further important to acknowledge that we are examining a sub-group of the Finnish non-resident population, those speaking the second national language (Swedish) as their native tongue. However, there is little reason to believe that these findings would not be representative of non-resident Finns in general, or other emigrants from a western country for that matter. The fact that our findings are very well in line with what has been found in studies of domestic media consumption and political participation (see Strömbäck Reference Strömbäck2017) indicates that this link is not particularly context-sensitive, but rather that it is a general pattern that travels across country borders and even electoral systems. Hence, we think it is safe to assume that the findings are not limited to the population we conducted this study on.

The findings from this study highlight the importance of information for political participation. Without updated knowledge of the relevant issues and the structure of political conflict in a society, participating in elections most likely seem less relevant, and deciding how to vote can be difficult. Based on our findings, the expanded possibilities for keeping oneself updated on political affairs across national borders that come with the online availability of different media channels, should provide good grounds for active engagement among non-resident citizens. However, more research is needed on the extent to which external voters consume media from their country of origin to stay informed about politics. If political media consumption is limited among non-resident citizens, the impact it has on turnout will remain limited as well.