CanberraInbox: Political Communication, the Personal Vote and Representation Styles—Studying Legislators' e-Newsletters in Australia

This research note introduces CanberraInbox, a new, regularly updated dataset comprising the full text of all e-newsletters from Australian members of Parliament. The dataset addresses a gap in studying how legislators communicate, which has traditionally focused on national leaders. Communication by individual legislators is essential for understanding how electoral incentives drive elite political behavior, including the cultivation of the personal vote and different representational styles. This initial study, based on 868 e-newsletters collected between March and December 2024, finds that institutional incentives shape elite behavior, with legislators in their first term, those in marginal electorates, and those elected under a candidate-centric system being more likely to send e-newsletters than longer-serving legislators, those in safe seats, and those elected in a party-centric system. However, the finding about marginal seats compared to safe seats was not statistically significant. The CanberraInbox dataset allows for ongoing study of political communication and provides a valuable comparison to the US-based DCInbox and UK-based UKInbox. Future research can explore the content of these communications, examining factors like party discipline, gender differences, and policy emphasis, contributing to broader political science literature on representational role, focus and style, and electoral behavior.