RIP #almedalen: The rise and fall of the hashtag of a Swedish democracy festival

Abstract

Democracy festivals are events that aim to strengthen democracy by engaging citizens, politicians and organisations in dialogue and provide a more equal access to the agenda. In recent years, social media have become important arenas for agenda building, supposedly equalising the access to such processes. This article uncovers patterns of activity and visibility in agenda building through an actor-centric study of the official X/Twitter hashtag of a Swedish democracy festival. We analyse all tweets containing the hashtag #almedalen for four election years and find that levels of activity in the hashtag are connected to the visibility of elite actors. We see a cycle of development concerning visibility in the hashtag over time with early adopters dominating the beginning of the period, establishment actors in the middle and right-wing populist actors at the end. There is little evidence of the hashtag as an equalising factor in agenda building. We discuss these findings in relation to the position of X/Twitter as an arena for opinion formation.