OFFLINE-ONLINE Casework Comparison

The key question posed for the offline-online comparison related to casework, is whether Internet enhances or in any way changes how MEPs conduct casework? In other words, do MEPs pursue more, or different types of casework online than they to conventionally offline?

To determine the extent to which there is indeed a difference between MEPs offline and online way of conducting casework, an online ‘case work’ proxy (presence of a casework feature or not) was selected as the dependent variable while several characteristic indicators for offline caseworker acted as the independent variables (see Table 7.6). The null hypothesis argued that MEPs who were pro-casework oriented offline would also be so online thus Internet not contributing to changes in MEPs conduct of casework while the virtual hypothesis expected that

MEPs who are not necessarily caseworkers offline would be more so online due to the online platform’s assumed convenience.

When looking at descriptive statistics, in Chapter 4, we learned that in general MEPs receive sizeable amount of casework. On average, casework takes up 20 per cent of MEPs’ time but nearly a quarter of MEPs report that casework consumes over 30 per cent of their time, while 10 per cent say it takes more than half of their time. A great majority of MEPs, 60 per cent, reported that on average they try to respond to 80-100% of the requests for assistance. These genera figures on casework, however, do not disaggregate through what channels MEPs receive and respond to casework.

When it comes to online casework, as noted in Chapter 5, MEPs’ use of their websites or blogs for casework purposes shows to be f a i r l y low. Both website analytics and survey responses show similar results where only 21% MEP websites/ blogs incorporated a casework feature while similarly a low percentage, 24 per cent MEPs reported ‘casework promotion’ as a motive for creating their website. Both scores were comparatively among the lowest in the pool o f responses (in the corresponding survey question asked) thus confirming the earlier conjecture that websites/ blogs cater poorly to casework functions in the context of the constituency outreach.

These results thus steer in the direction of acceptance of the null rather than the virtual office hypothesis.

When looking at the covariance matrix and logit regression results (Tables 7.6), it is observed that i) there is a positive relationship between online and offline casework proxies though with a numeric value very close to zero while the logit regression results showed and insignificant correlation between the online and offline casework dimensions – time spent on casework (Coeff.

0.026, Std. Err. 0.104 P > |z |= 0.79, Pseudo r2 = .02, N=123) and responsiveness to casework (Coeff. 0.211, Std. Err. 0.195 P > |z |= 0.28, Pseudo r2 = .017, N=145). Hence providing these two results, there seems to be a positive (in favor of the null hypothesis) but most likely a spurious relationship between the on and offline casework dimensions.

Table 7.6 Covariance Matrix: Online-Offline Casework

N=123 Online

casework

Time spent on casework

Responsiveness to casework

Online casework .18166 x x

Time spent on casework

.05251 4.508 x

Responsiveness to casework

.05731 .102292 1.64468

There are two plausible explanations for this finding and for the generally low usage of the online platform for casework purposes. The first is that not all casework can be conducted entirely online.

While lighter cases such as requests for information could be effectively dealt with through the online platform, harder cases typically require MEPs’ offline intervention. Moreover, constituents’

preferences (based on MEPs’ estimates) in Table 7.7 below confirm that websites are not a favored channel for communicating casework requests. Though email appears to be the most preferred choice, conventional offline channels such as letter and telephone prevail as second choices for lodging casework requests. Website ranks fairly low and represents only a quarter of requests.

A notable characteristic of the three mentioned communications channels (email, letters and telephone) is that they facilitate direct contact. Because heavier ‘cases’ typically involve more personal issues, problems and requests, constituents’ use of direct and personalized forms of communication is understandable. At the same time, office visits also facilitate means of direct face-to-face contact, but show to be less commonly used by constituents in the casework context.

Then again not all citizens know that MEP may have a constituency office – thus resort. Moreover, the high preference for e-mail may also be reinforced by MEPs’ tendency to demand requests coming in via other channels to be “put in writing”, reference made during interviews. Thus, e- mail contact in many cases may have been preceded by other forms of initial contact.

Table 7.7 Channels of receiving casework

Through which of the following channels do you receive most of your assistance requests?

E-mail 93%

Letters 37%

Telephone 35%

Office visits in Brussels or Strasbourg 27%

Your website 25%

Consultation hours in your country office 25%

Your national party's office 11%

N=136

The second plausible reason is that interdependence between both offline and online communication channels demonstrated here, though likely reflective of what happens in reality, poses challenges for disentangling the cause and effect of Internet’s utility and the offline-online comparison with respect to the casework dimension. Moreover, the descriptive statistics seem to suggest that the offline-online channels seem to be reinforcing each other or where individuals, be it MEPs or constituents, may use both online and offline channels (for example if one fails, they may resort to another) for lodging or responding to casework. Hence the spurious result between the two levels.