Explaining the Diffusion of Web-Based Communication Technology among Congressional Offices: A Natural Experiment using State Delegations
34 Pages
Posted: 13 Aug 2009
Last revised: 29 Aug 2012
University of California, Riverside (UCR) - Department of Political Science
Northeastern University - Department of Political Science; Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)
Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Political Science
There are 2 versions of this paper
Date Written: August 29, 2009
Abstract
Do legislators learn to use new communication technologies from each other? Using data from the official homepages of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, we test whether web-based communication technology diffuses through congressional state delegations. We use a natural experimental design that exploits ignorable state boundaries to distinguish between causal diffusion processes and spatial heterogeneity. Using nonlinear conditional autoregressive models for the statistical test, we find that web communication technology practices are weakly driven by communication within state delegations, and with the effect slightly more pronounced among Democrats than among Republicans.
Keywords: Legislative Websites, Natural Experiment, Bayesian Estimation, Diffusion Models
JEL Classification: C11, C99
Suggested Citation:
Suggested Citation
Esterling, Kevin M. and Lazer, David and Neblo, Michael A., Explaining the Diffusion of Web-Based Communication Technology among Congressional Offices: A Natural Experiment using State Delegations (August 29, 2009). APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1451450
