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Figure Three.

Overall Usefulness of Emergent Telecommunication Configurations As Perceived by Congressmen and Staff

Key: N and % = number and percent of congressmen or staff perceiving an emergent configuration as very useful or useful; R = relative rank of a configuration in overall perceived usefulness.

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3. Perceptions of advantages and disadvantages.

In addition to an

indication of overall potential usefulness, the congressional interviews yielded a fairly specific identification of the possible advantages and disadvantages for each emergent channel.

In the case of cable television, the most useful emergent configuration, the potential advantages of reaching more people more effectively apparently outweigh concerns about audience size, access, and cost. For information retrieval, the key benefit is the provision of more timely and relevant information to both congressmen and constituents. This advantage seems to be partially offset by possible limitations stemming from internal House politics, adequacy of current systems, insufficient constituent understanding, and invasions of privacy or abuse of privileged information.

The most important beneficial effects of the videoconference appear to be the potential for increased communication with small groups, improvement over current audio-only systems, and time and energy savings for congressmen and staff. Significant disadvantages include people problems of getting a group together, preference for person-to-person contact, and problems of time, cost, and access.

But on

Perceptions of the teleconference are similar except that, on the positive side, the potential seems greater for increased citizen communication (in this case with larger groups) and improved citizen participation. the negative side, concerns about inadequate constituent interest, cost, and losing the personal quality of communication seem to be intensified. This perhaps explains why the teleconference ranks lower than the videoconference in overall perceived usefulness.

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For the two lowest ranking configurations, the possible disadvantages

outweigh advantages.

In the case of the videophone, the potential for improvement over the standard phone and greater personal contact with constituents is only weakly recognized, while strong doubts prevail about time and cost effectiveness, availability and social acceptability, and in general whether or not the videophone really offers any significant advantage at all.

Perceptions about cable television polling are on balance even less favorable. While such polling is perceived as having the potential to increase citizen participation and feedback, the overriding fear is that cable polling might be subject to abuse or bias and pose a serious threat to the role of the congressman and the nature of the representative function in the American political system. There is considerable sentiment that current systems for opinion polling are adequate, or at least that cable polling is certainly not worth the risks involved.

4. Key dimensions underlying perceptions.

Based on the foregoing

analysis, there appear to be several key dimensions which underlie congressional perceptions of the potential role for emergent telecommunications. The results suggest that the use of a particular communication channel depends on an overall assessment by the congressman or staff person of the relative costs and benefits (including both objective technical-economic and the much more subjective behavioral-political costs and benefits) when compared against available options.

As illustrated in Figure Four, the overall assessment of emergent telecommunications by congressmen and staff seems to reflect a weighing of perceived advantages (beneficial effects) against perceived disadvantages

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Figure Four. Key Dimensions Underlying Congressional Perceptions of the Potential Role for Emergent Telecommunications

*A substitute channel takes the place of, a complementary channel serves to fill out or complete, and a supplementary channel adds to or extends an existing channel.

**Refers to the degree of control over the channel in regard to personal involvement of the congressman and constraints on his time and/ or activity.

role

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(detrimental effects or limitations). Key dimensions which provide a continuum for this assessment appear to include the nature of the alternative channel (supplementary, complementary, or substitute), the role congruency of the

channel (degree of support for or threat to the congressman's perceived role), and the controllability of the channel (degree of control over personal involvement and constraints on time and/or activity).

Obviously other factors like financial cost, access, possible abuse, and people problems all are important (and figure into the benefit/cost ratio for each channel), but the implication is that the three dimensions identified above (nature, role congruency, and controllability) are of the most fundamental importance. Thus, in this interpretation, cable television has the highest perceived usefulness because its ratio of perceived advantages to disadvantages is most favorable. Cable television is perceived as serving to complement or supplement the current constituent communication system, being congruent with the congressman's perceived role, permitting a high level of control over the member's personal involvement, and keeping constraints on his time and/or activity to a minimum. Likewise for information retrieval.

By contrast, the videophone and cable TV polling have the lowest perceived usefulness because the benefit/cost ratio is least favorable. These configurations are perceived as largely serving to substitute for current and already adequate channels, posing a significant threat to the congressman's perceived role, and offering relatively little control over the member's personal involvement with the resultant likelihood of additional constraints on his time and/or activity. The other emergent configurations--the teleconference and videoconference--fall somewhere in between cable television and cable TV polling, which seem to represent the two ends of the spectrum.