The Internet and American Life Project, in conjunction with the National League of Cities-- a municipal organization consisting of 1,800 cities and towns, released a 10/2/02 report on how local officials use the Internet for dealing with constituents online. The Internet and American Life Project, in conjunction with the National League of Cities-- a municipal organization consisting of 1,800 cities and towns, released a 10/2/02 report on how local officials use the Internet for dealing with constituents online. Traditionally, attempts to gauge Internet use by citizens in government or policy-related contexts focus mostly on interactions with federal lawmakers, mostly in terms of increased electronic communications towards Congress and greater traffic on federal websites. The Pew study posits, however, that while overall citizen use at the federal level might be greater, there is a gap in terms of lawmaker expectations towards, and citizen use of, technology within local levels of government. The study was based on a survey of 2,000 randomly selected local officials (with a 26% response rate) from cities with populations ranging from 10,000 to 3.5 million, conducted from January to April 2002. The majority of respondents (71%) were city council members and 23% mayors. Some 71% reported that staff had both Internet and e-mail access, while 21% said that only one of the two were available to staff due to lack of budget resources, technology support, or staff demand. But, some 38% of respondents themselves use more than one e-mail address for their work, especially those part-time legislators or those who find non-governmental e-mail addresses easier or more convenient to use. Nearly 90% of respondents stated that they used the Internet and/or e-mail in their official capacity—with 75% doing so at least weekly and 34% doing so every day—and 78% used e-mail to communicate with colleagues A total of 85% said they used the Web for research for their work, while 55% conduct online research at least weekly. About 82% of survey respondents, however, communicate with constituents via e-mail, 60% on a weekly basis and 21% on a daily basis. Nearly half of officials in cities of over 150,000 do so daily, compared to 9% of those in cities of under 20,000 people. Additionally, some 8% only use e-mail for internal government communications. Because official communications may be subject to public disclosure under Freedom of Information Act guidelines, the study also asked respondents whether such requests had been issued. Of the half stating that their official e-mail was subject to FOIA disclosure, 34% received media or citizen group requests, with both those officials representing populations of over 150,000 and those who use e-mail daily, more than twice as like to receive such requests. Conversely, the public’s right to know might be outweighed by individual concerns around privacy. Thus citizens might be more inclined to participate through means that require them to disclose less information about themselves. The verdict is still out in terms of how well the Internet facilitates and sustains public discourse around issues. A total of 74% of respondents received e-mail from local citizens and groups weekly, and 24% did so daily. Moreover, 61% of respondents found that e-mail could be useful for facilitating discussion around community issues. But 38% said that e-mail could not support public discussion (including 35% of those who believed e-mail can be useful as a facilitator of discussion). When given the opportunity to actually interact through e-mail or online forums, only 17% of elected officials did so, even at the level of simply reading occasional posts by citizens. Though not fleshed out, the disparity in findings might underscore how online discussions can initially attract public attention, but unless there is substantive support by citizens and elected officials in treating online forums as serious discussion spaces that are well-managed or facilitated, it is hard to sustain participation and interest over the long haul. Citing figures from a Congress Online Project 8/7/02 report, the Pew report notes that while 80% of local governments now have websites, only 50% of Internet users know about them. Despite frequent commentary about the role of the Internet in engaging citizen action around national issues, only about 11% of citizens surveyed knew of a local issue in which the Internet was utilized for outreach or mobilization. Of particularly interest to online advocacy vehicles at the local level, 35% of local officials had been the targets of e-mail campaigns, while 12% had been targeted by fax campaigns. For those who communicate regularly with constituents via e-mail, 60% were at best somewhat receptive to e-mail campaigns, compared to 61% of those who give treat e-mail as a primary communications tool. About a quarter of officials, regardless of whether they had been targeted for e-mail campaigns, considered them as embodying solid background research, well-thought policy options, and some level of public support; 42% of those who have actually received such campaigns agreed with this sentiment. Yet 36% felt that e-mail campaigns are often poorly organized, and do not carry enough distinctiveness in the messages to be worthwhile. When asked if e-mail campaigns had been persuasive in getting them to vote or propose measures in a particular way, 50% said only that they had been persuaded in part as to the merits of an argument made by a campaign, and a full 48% said they had not been persuaded by an e-mail campaign. Only 1% said they had been persuaded by an e-mail campaign enough to support a particular position. Most tellingly, 61% of officials consider e-mail campaigns successful only if complimented by a phone call or office visit. While not consistently expressing a preference for any specific form of communication, local officials stated that citizens were more likely to contact them by regular mail, phone call, or office visit, and less likely to communicate by fax (2%), Regardless of the size of locality, frequency of communications, or level of “wired” citizenry, 75% found the volume of e-mail manageable. E-mail helped 73% of respondents to improve their understanding of community opinions on issues; some 21% of respondents use e-mail for citizen input on issues, while 13% used e-mail to propose new ideas to citizens. Respondents in communities where over half the population had Internet access (84%) were more likely than those with less than a third of the population wired (64%) to find e-mail a useful gauge of community opinion. With respect to gaps in citizen access to the technology resources that might increase or better support online citizen interaction with local government, one-third of local officials surveyed could not estimate the current level of citizen access to basic online resources. Some 65% of respondents, however, rated increasing citizen access to technology as an issue of some importance, most likely because they serve communities in which a significant portion of citizens have technology. Overall, the Pew study seems to suggest that the interest of local government to be more accessible online that is not yet matched by complimentary citizen interest in interacting with local government online. Moreover, there may only be a relatively small group of online citizens active in, much less aware of, electronic interaction with government.