Civil Dialogue and Media Debate

In this project we studie the local elections and local referendums in 2014. The project examines how the local media monitor the politics in some of the municipalities and counties where referendums have taken place during the last parliamentary term.

The study makes a selection of local political environments with the greatest possible variation in the size of the municipality, media structure, the referendum question and the referendum outcome. Local media material is studied using content analyzes the last three weeks of the local election campaign. The content analysis compares how the referendum question, or the debate, recurred in election debates in different environments and the role it played in the local election campaign in the media.

The study was conducted under DEMICOMs election campaign project funded by the SKL, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions.