The Australian public and politics on-line: Reinforcing or reinventing representation?

Abstract

Fears for the health of representative politics in advanced industrial democracies have gained prominence in recent years with observers pointing to a growing body of evidence that citizens are disengaging from formal politics. One of the solutions put forward to address these perceived problems is the incorporation, by politicians, of new communication channels, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). To date, however, attention has focused largely on the supply-side of on-line engagement by politicians rather than on levels of demand and actual use among citizens. This article provides a ‘bottom – up’ perspective to the debate in the Australian context, looking at the e-democracy and, particularly, e-representation debate from the public's viewpoint. Specifically, we address two questions: how much support do such e-initiatives attract? And can they bring about the mobilisation of less politically engaged groups? Our findings show that although Australians broadly support the roll-out of e-representation tools, current interaction levels are low. Second, although they may have the potential to engage some younger people in the political process, widespread mobilisation is unlikely to occur in the near future.

Notes

¹Source: Australian Election Study 2004, QC14; data is available for academic use from ESSDA through NESSTAR.

²Kate Lundy noted: ‘While the current debate circulates around the value of the technologies themselves and their merits in a participatory democracy, broader issues regarding the nature, scope and use of an online environment and its accessibility must receive the attention they deserve. Only then can we create a political culture that will truly embrace the concept of an Australian cyber democracy’. Mark Latham, Lindsay Tanner and Carmen Lawrence voiced similar concerns.

³The ‘Internet and Parliamentarians Survey’ was a self-contained study commissioned by the authors to the SRC, a market research institute based in Melbourne. Telephone interviews were conducted in Australia with 1200 adults aged >18 years during 2 – 15 May 2005; 7000 respondents were selected through a State-stratified sample of phone books where the Federal Electoral Seat could be identified; respondents were then selected randomly within households and not replaced.

⁴To view the complete questionnaire, see www.i-pol.org or contact [email protected].

⁵Although the numbers of those with Internet access across all categories of education has risen since the Australian Election Study (AES) first collected data on access, the gap between the better- and less well-educated population has remained. For instance, the 1998 AES shows that 57% of those with a postgraduate degree and 52% of those with a bachelor's degree reported access, but only 20% of those with no qualifications did so. By 2004, the proportion of those with no qualifications reporting access had grown to 51%, whereas among those with university experience, it was virtually nil (2%).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Ward

Rachel Gibson is Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Social Change University of Manchester. Wainer Lusoli is a Lecturer in Political Communication in the Social and Communication Studies Department, University of Chester. Stephen Ward is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford. The authors acknowledge the support of the UK Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] Res 335-25-0029 in the conduct of this research.