THE HOME STYLE HOMEPAGE - LEGISLATOR USE OF THE WORLD-WIDE-WEB FOR CONSTITUENCY CONTACT

The Internet not only provides a low cost and increasingly popular med ium for legislators to interact with constituents, but also an opportu nity for researchers to test established theories of ''home style'' us ing a much larger group of elected officials. Examining the Web sites of members of the House of Representatives during the Internet's intro duction into Congress (June through August of 1997), we address two qu estions: (1) What factors influence members to invest scarce resources in an official congressional homepage? (2) Of those who go ''online,' ' why do some members emphasize constituent casework while others do n ot? Our findings confirm that legislators use the World Wide Web much as they do other means of constituent contact. Republicans, younger le gislators and representatives of more affluent populations are more li kely to have homepages. Of those who have a homepage, Democrats and me mbers from electorally marginal districts are more likely to use that Web site to solicit casework.