Welsh-language provision on party web sites during the 2007 Welsh Assembly election

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of Welsh-language provision on the web sites of political parties contesting the 2007 Welsh Assembly elections. Design/methodology/approach – Expert inspection was carried out on the web sites of 18 of the 19 parties contesting the election. Goal-directed walkthroughs were conducted on four web sites judged to be making a bilingual provision. Findings – Overall, the Welsh language was highly marginalised. While Welsh-language elements were identified on ten of the 18 web sites, only four web sites attempted to make a bilingual provision. On three of these, a user intending to interact with the web site through the medium of Welsh would still encounter English language content and/or navigation. Only one web site offered a fully Welsh-language experience. Research limitations/implications – This paper only considers the web sites of political parties and presents only a high level analysis. It does not consider the impact of Welsh-language provision on the electorate. Originality/value – This is the first paper to systematically examine Welsh-language provision on party web sites during elections for the National Assembly for Wales. In contrast to many studies of election-related internet activity in the UK, it considers a regional election rather than a UK general election.