Steen Steensen from OsloMet presents a new book in which, through an ethnographic exploration of two distinct communities in Denmark and England, he seeks to answer how the retreat of local journalism and the advance of social media platforms are reshaping democracy at the grassroots level.
Two communities – Frederiksberg in Denmark and Ringwood in England – are at the centre of Steensen’s ethnographic research in the new book. He explores what happens to local public life when journalism largely disappears and social media platforms become the main spaces for local information and debate.
– The public spheres of both Frederiksberg and Ringwood have transformed. They used to be dominated by the logics of journalism. Now they are dominated by the logics of digital, social media platforms. How did this transformation affect the communities? How did it change public connectivity, deliberation, participation, and informed local citizenship? In essence: How did this transformation affect local democracy? These are the questions the book sets out to find answers to, Steensen underlines.
Drawing on a combined year of ethnographic fieldwork in the two communities, Steensen introduces the concept of “casual democracy” to describe the fluid, informal, and often unpredictable forms of local public life emerging on platforms such as Facebook.
Steensen explains:
– Casual democracy describes what happens when social media becomes the main space for local public life. The algorithmic logic of platforms makes information flows fragmented and unpredictable. It becomes harder to know what to trust, informal power structures shape what gets seen and discussed, and there can be unclear motivations behind information sharing.
– At the same time, people can become quite relaxed about local democracy, assuming that if something important happens, they will hear about it. In my research, I aim to understand how the casualness of local democracy affects informed citizenship, public debate, and participation, and what enables or limits it.
Casual Democracy: News, Participation, and Deliberation in Local Communities Dominated by Social Media is published Open Access.
Find the book here.
Picture: Steen Steensen.