Our study offers an early glimpse at how things are beginning to shake out. Although
we are constrained because our data are limited to the state of Georgia, we suspect that similar patterns would be observed in other parts of the United States. Overall, governmental Web sites appear to be emerging as an increasingly important vehicle for citizen-initiated contacts with government. Slightly more than one-half of the respondents in our sample report having gone on line recently and slightly less than 40 percent of those who have gone online or 20 percent of the sample as a whole—reported visiting governmental Web sites. Should 20 percent be considered a substantial number? As one standard of comparison