Citizen 2026: From broadcasting to dialogue

How does a municipality move from informing citizens to actually having a dialogue with them – and what happens to citizens’ comments and suggestions once they have been received?

On September 17, 2026, communication leaders, digital experts and municipalities from across the Nordics gathered at Sveasalen in Stockholm for Citizen 2026 — a full day dedicated to better citizen communication, dialogue and digital innovation in the public sector.

In this talk, Petra Sintorn, Head of Citizen Services at Botkyrka Municipality and PhD in Information Systems, draws on her doctoral thesis Shaping Digital Citizen Participation.

New channels don’t create dialogue on their own

Petra explains why digital channels and platforms rarely create participation by themselves, and describes four ways participation plays out in local government:

• Selective participation – we choose which issues citizens can influence, and sometimes whose voices carry the most weight.
• Symbolic participation – we ask, citizens engage, and then nothing happens. The risk is that we build distrust instead of trust.
• Instrumental participation – dialogue is used to answer a specific question through pre-defined steps.
• Disruptive participation – citizens and new platforms, such as TikTok, change how an organisation communicates and works.

Measure what happens, not just reach

Instead of counting reach, followers and comments, Petra challenges communicators to ask different questions: Who reads the comments? Who is responsible for giving feedback? How do the comments influence decisions? And are we prepared to be changed by the dialogue?

Listen, respond, adapt

According to Petra, a culture of participation is built on three things: listening – not just collecting feedback – responding by showing what happens to citizens’ input, and adapting by letting dialogue shape priorities, ways of working and decisions.