Online council meetings didn't widen the digital divide, Swedish study finds
A new analysis of Swedish municipal council meetings shows that shifting to online formats during the pandemic did not disadvantage older councillors in speaking time—challenging assumptions about age and digital access. The finding suggests that strong digital infrastructure and public tech literacy can neutralize age-related inequalities in democratic participation.
Originaltitel: Making local democracy work during the pandemic – analyses of online and onsite city council meetings in Sweden
<p>Democratic decision-making upholds local government legitimacy, institutionalising participation, debate, and decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated online meeting formats to maintain these democratic processes. This shift allowed for a natural experiment to study the effects of online local meetings on councillors’ floor time. This paper develops a method to analyse the transition from onsite to online meetings and its effect on floor time distribution, and we here analyse the effects on floor time among different age groups. Using video analysis of onsite and online meetings in two Swedish municipal councils, our results showed that age may not significantly predict floor time, contrary to digital divide theories. We suggest that Sweden’s high digital literacy and robust municipal IT support mitigated age-related differences in floor time. Future research should explore varying council sizes to broaden the context.</p>