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366 Araba Sey and Manuel Castellsrecords, and campaign finance (Browning, 2001; Pew Internet and AmericanLife Project, 2003). Available information may be superficial (Levine, 2003),non-analytical (Wolfensberger, 2002), or, in some cases, high quality but notuser friendly (Coleman, 1999). Studies of online political campaigns in the USand UK conclude that most campaigns use the Internet as an “electronicbrochure” (Kamarck, 2002: 89).Despite indications of the Internet’s effectiveness in mobilizing voters (forexample, Jesse Ventura’s success in the 1998 Minnesota gubernatorial election),by 2002 there was still limited mobilization online. Internet users weremore energized by websites offering political humor than by those of officialcampaigns (Coleman, 2001; Pew Internet and American Life Project, 2003).In the UK, only 38 percent of political sites allowed visitors to join up online,and this usually involved using off-line methods such as mailing downloadedapplications (Ward et al., 2003).Politicians are also generally reluctant to engage actively with their publicson- or off-line (Browning, 2001; Gibson et al., 2003; Levine, 2003). For example,less than a third of UK political sites examined by Ward and co-workers(2003) had interactive capabilities, and during the 2002 US elections, Internetportals such as Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN provided more tools for analysis andinteraction than campaign sites did (Pew Internet and American Life Project,2003). Where politicians have tried to interact with Internet users, the opennessof such forums is questionable (Gibson et al., 2003). Although closure ofthe US House and Senate offices after the September 11 attacks spurred a morecentral role for the Internet in Congress, members still have an ambivalent attitudetoward the medium (Wolfensberger, 2002). Overall, widespread acceptanceof the Internet as a tool for political campaigns and programs has nottranslated into a more open and participatory political process.THE POLITICAL LIMITS OF INTERNET-BASED POLITICSThe limited exploitation of the democratic capabilities of the Internet by politicianscan be attributed to perceptions of the Internet or to the characteristics,preferences, and motivations of politicians. Generally speaking, few politicianssee the Internet as a force to be reckoned with. They perceive the Internetas “little more than a big electronic auditorium where millions of peoplegather to spout off much like high-school kids in a civics class – but nonethelesshave little actual impact on the crafting of policies that govern them”(Browning, 2001: 13), thus underestimating the democratizing potential of themedium.On the flipside of this is a general distrust of public engagement in politics.Increasing use of direct political methods, such as protest politics, direct