Municipal Websites in the Local Public Debate

Abstract

The proliferation of digital communication spaces is expected to have the paradoxical effect of both enhancing pluralism as well as causing a fragmentation of the public political debate. The question addressed in this paper concerns the position of one such space of communication in the local public debate - municipal websites. Four Norwegian municipalities are studied, and the role of their websites is assessed by evaluating the visibility and the extent to which the contents of these websites affect the agenda of the local media. The study indicates that even though the municipal websites are not particularly visible to the citizens, they still influence the public political agenda by being a source of information to the press. As the communication taking place on the municipal websites spills over to the media and thereby reaches the majority of the citizens, the websites can not be said to lead to a fragmentation of the public debate. Whether or not the websites contribute to the pluralism of the public debate is however uncertain.