On-line forums as an arena for political discussions

Abstract

This text describes experiences of four on-line discussion forums that are used in a Swedish local government context. More precisely, these experiences come from a special kind of Digital Cities that are implemented and run by local government. The main issue that is treated in the following is how aspects such as the implementation of the forums, functional features of the forums, and activities to increase access to Internet affect the on-line debate. Lastly, three strategies for how the amount of debate in the on-line forums might be increased are outlined.