“What Hath God Wrought?”

Chapter 3 explores the development of congressional office websites as distinct representational spaces. Members were slow to develop a web presence and use email addresses to communicate with constituents, and they generally continue to be slow to adopt new communication technologies online. As with other technological developments, the use of congressional websites led to an exponential increase in communication from constituents via email. Members have responded to this enormous, steady increase in communication by streamlining constituent correspondence and office responses—including by contracting third-party vendors to do these tasks for them.