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

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.