Source: http://www.ictparliament.org/index.php?option=com_booklibrary&task=view&id=145&catid=48&Itemid=1102
Authors : Kathy Goldschmidt and Leslie Ochr
Publisher: Congressional Management
Foundation
Publication
date : June 2008
Description : To understand how citizens are communicating
with their Members of Congress and what motivates them to do so, CMF partnered
with Zogby International to conduct a nationwide survey of citizens to address
their methods, reasons, and expectations with regard to their communications
with Capitol Hill.
The resulting report, Communicating with Congress: How
the Internet Has Changed Citizen Engagement, discusses the results of this
research with over 10,000 citizens. It is the companion to the 2005 CMF report
detailing congressional staff views of the increasing volumes of constituent
mail.
Where to find the report: http://nposoapbox.s3.amazonaws.com/cmfweb/CWC_CitizenEngagement.pdf
Key findings from the report include:
- Almost
half of adult Americans contacted Congress in the last five years to
support, oppose or learn more about issues of interest to them.
- The
majority of people surveyed do not believe Congress is interested in what
they have to say, but they want Members' to keep them informed of their
views and activities and of the policy issues being debated in Washington.
- Those
who had contacted Congress tended to be more politically active in other
ways than those who had not.
- The
Internet has become the primary source for learning about and
communicating with Congress.
A majority
of people who contacted Congress had been asked to do so by a third party -
primarily through interest groups - and they place a high value
on the role of advocacy campaigns in our democracy.
Victoria's eGovernment Resource Centre a finalist in the global award for 'Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics in 2008'
http://egovau.blogspot.com/2008/10/victorias-egovernment-resource-centre.html
Posted by: eGOV AU | October 14, 2008 at 06:47 PM