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.

中文翻译：

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RIP #almedalen：瑞典民主节标签的兴衰

民主节是通过让公民、政治家和组织参与对话来加强民主的活动，并提供更平等的参与议程的机会。近年来，社交媒体已成为议程构建的重要舞台，据称可以平等地获得此类过程。本文通过对瑞典民主节的官方 X/Twitter 标签进行以参与者为中心的研究，揭示了议程构建中的活动模式和可见性。我们分析了四年选举年中包含该主题标签 #almedalen 的所有推文，发现该主题标签中的活动水平与精英演员的可见度有关。随着时间的推移，我们看到一个关于标签可见性的发展周期，早期采用者在时期开始时占据主导地位，建制派行为者处于中间地位，右翼民粹主义行为者在末期。几乎没有证据表明标签是议程建设中的均衡因素。我们讨论了这些发现与 X/Twitter 作为舆论形成舞台的地位有关。