The “nationalist” label should be used carefully, as there are few openly xenophobic parties of any significance in the liberal political landscape of Norway. None of the parties in Parliament qualifies as “nationalist” in the latter sense, although the populist Progress Party and rural Centre Party appeals to nationalist sentiments in one form or another. The much smaller Democrats and the Coast Party (at the present time less than 1% of the votes) are more directly nationalist and the former also clearly xenophobic. Party theory suggests that due to institutional factors, parties will resist or attempt to add new technologies as another “instrument” grafted onto the party organization (Harmel & Janda, 1994). Furthermore, in party systems with cartel tendencies (Katz & Mair, 1995) there are few opportunities for new parties to gain access to the media or be included in government coalitions. Hence, recently established parties, such as the Democrats (2002), Coast Party (1999) and possibly the Progress Party (1973) could be expected to take advantage of the possibilities for mobilization offered by the emergence of Web 2.0. This paper discusses these three “nationalist” or “semi-nationalist” political parties’ use of Web 2.0, including activity on major sites as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, as well as blogs and national Web 2.0 sites. Focusing on periods of election campaigning, from 2007 and up to 2011, it includes both national (2009) and local elections (2007 and 2011). It should be noted that as the forthcoming local elections are in September 2011, the paper will have to present preliminary data on this campaign.
