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

Fears for the health of representative politics in advanced industrialdemocracies have gained prominence in recent years with observers pointingto a growing body of evidence that citizens are disengaging from formalpolitics. One of the solutions put forward to address these perceivedproblems is the incorporation, by politicians, of new communicationchannels, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW). To date,however, attention has focused largely on the supply-side of on-lineengagement by politicians rather than on levels of demand and actual useamong citizens. This article provides a ‘bottom– up’ perspective to the debatein the Australian context, looking at the e-democracy and, particularly,e-representation debate from the public’s viewpoint. Specifically, we addresstwo questions: how much support do such e-initiatives attract? And canthey bring about the mobilisation of less politically engaged groups? Ourfindings show that although Australians broadly support the roll-out ofe-representation tools, current interaction levels are low. Second, althoughthey may have the potential to engage some younger people in the politicalprocess, widespread mobilisation is unlikely to occur in the near future