Israeli Representatives' Use of and Attitudes Toward Web Applications

In the last decade, there has been a major increase in the technology that enables representatives and voters to connect with one another. Representatives can use email, their political party's website, personal websites, Facebook, e-newsletters, weblogs and Twitter simultaneously to bypass the traditional political media. The author asks, what are the usage patterns of these web applications? What are the characteristics of the representatives who use these technologies? What are their attitudes about their use? Most previous studies have concentrated on one perspective (representatives or voters) or used one research method (questionnaires, interviews, hard data). This article is unique in that it combines several research methods: interviews with representatives regarding their attitudes toward the new technology and hard data from the Israeli Knesset's website regarding the MKs' use of web applications. The findings demonstrate that the Israeli representatives are no different than their colleagues in other parliaments. Young MKs and junior MKs are more likely to use web applications than older MKs and those with more seniority. However, coalition MKs use web applications differently than opposition MKs. Furthermore, the representatives have positive attitudes toward the use of web applications and consider them useful for communicating with the voters.