Insändare i lokaltidningar

The purpose of this study is to examine the letters to the editors of six daily newspapers in Swedish small towns, and if they can be considered part of the local democratic process as a place for public discourse. The study will look at both the content published in the papers during a week in October 2009 and how the content is processed by the editorial staff – how they make their selection of which letters they will publish. In order to gain insight as to the democratic function of the letters to the editor we have used the following two issues: !) How do the editorial staffs of the papers, decide what gets published? 2) What is the nature of the discussion in the published content?