Digital communication and the city. Analysis of the websites of the most visited cities in the world in the COVID-19 era

Nowadays, cities are competing to become the global community's choice in investment, trade, tourism, and partnerships. In this context, the redefinition of their communication strategy, especially at the digital level, has become an urgent challenge. On the other side, COVID-19 has directly impacted all facets of life and, particularly in the world of travel and tourism, has transformed into a communication crisis for cities. On this basis, this paper, using a methodology already proven on websites of different thematic areas, presents a descriptive, explanatory, and exploratory research on the websites of the 26 most visited cities in the world. Conceiving websites as the nerve center of cities communication strategy, the study has applied an analysis tool based on six variables (usability, interactivity, information offered, content typology and updating, social networks and transmedia content, and accessibility) and organized around 75 thematic categories. This made it possible to deepen among other topics, on how the city is shown through its digital channels, what and how it tells the story, and, very relevantly, how cities have tackled COVID-19 related information on their websites. The research highlights, among other aspects, a trend towards the mediatization of processes following routines typical of cybermedia, warning of the need to increase the role of websites as informative spaces on COVID-19.