ABSTRACT
The task of this opening chapter is to introduce some of the main themes of the book by providing an overview of the current state of the literature and research on parties and the Internet. In doing so, our aim is to link Internet party research to the more general literature on political parties, covering themes such as party change, campaign communication and parties and democracy. Too often, Internet studies have been divorced from the pre-existing literature and have treated Internet usage as though it occurred in a vacuum. In particular, this chapter focuses on four key areas of parties’ relations with the Internet:
• the growth of party Internet usage – why do parties go online and what are the political and technological factors explaining patterns of uptake?
