Multilingual accessibility of websites in relation to translation policies: Municipal websites in the Helsinki metropolitan area during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article analyzes the availability and accessibility of multilingual coronavirus information on the websites of the three largest cities in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim is to assess whether these websites fulfilled their objective of providing access to coronavirus information in the needed languages for the residents of the area. The research questions are: (1) How accessible were the websites in terms of findability, timeliness, and language coverage? (2) How did the practices on the websites reflect the translation policies of the municipalities? The material consists of website data, interviews, and municipal policy documents. The results demonstrate that the cities clearly saw the provision of multilingual information as a priority, and translations were available in up to twenty non-national languages. However, cities’ translation policies were poorly defined, they were unprepared for the timely publication of crisis information in multiple languages on their websites, and their crisis communication plans did not adequately address the needs of multilingual populations.